December 18, 2023 • 19 mins
Can companies find the talent they need in the current labor market? William Tincup and Rhea Moss, an expert from iCIMS, tackle this question together. As the leader of iCIMS' insights program, Moss brings her extensive research experience to shed light on the aggregate activity of iCIMS' customer base, consisting of 6,000 companies. The labor market is pretty complex, which means we're going to need some efficient recruitment strategies to stay ahead of the game.
Throughout the conversation, Moss provides valuable data-driven insights into job applications, hiring trends, and time-to-fill statistics. The duo delves into the paradoxical dynamics of the labor market, where a surge in the number of applicants for technical positions contrasts with a slowdown in technical hiring. They investigate the reasons behind this phenomenon, such as companies' hesitancy to invest in new projects and talent amidst economic uncertainties.
Another crucial aspect of their discussion involves the potential impact of generative AI on the supply of technical talent. Moss emphasizes the importance of human involvement in critical decision-making processes, highlighting the unique insights and understanding that human professionals bring to the table. While AI can enhance efficiency, the expertise and judgment of recruiters remain indispensable.
There's a myriad of challenges and opportunities in this ever-evolving tech hiring landscape, so let's try to make sense of it together!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
William Tincup (00:32):
This is William Tincup, and you're listening to
the Recruiting Daily podcast.
Today, we have Ria Mollison fromiSIMS, and we are going to be
talking about labor, market, andtech hiring deep dive.
So we get to talk about numbers,and this is going to be fun.
So, uh, Ria, would you do us afavor and introduce yourself and
what you
Rhea Moss (00:51):
do at iSIMS?
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
Um, I am always excited to talklabor market, always excited to
talk data.
Um, I lead our insights programat ISIMS, which is our research
program that gets to look at theaggregate activity of the whole
ISIMS customer base.
So what are our 6, 000 customersdoing?
(01:12):
Are people applying for jobs?
Are companies finding thosepeople?
How long is it taking?
And then really get to share itwith kind of the rest of the
world, which we all seem kind ofsitting on the edge of our seat
right now, waiting for thatinformation.
William Tincup (01:23):
Yeah, it's, it's uh, 2024, you know, what is it,
uh, six weeks away and you getAgain, you turn on any of the AM
radio shows and get half thepeople that are going to say,
it's going to be worse thanever.
And then you get some peoplethat are like really super
optimistic, like, you know,inflation didn't go down as bad
as, as much as we thought itwould like, okay, maybe that's a
(01:45):
sign.
I don't know.
Rhea Moss (01:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the million dollarquestion.
I think we'd all be rich if weknew the answer to that
question.
I think.
That what's interesting as welook at it from a talent
acquisition perspective is wecan look at all of the economic
data that we want.
You know, what is unemploymentdoing?
What are resignation rateslooking like?
What about reductions in force?
(02:07):
What about inflation?
And then wage inflation?
But what I hear when we talk somuch, when I talk to so many of
our customers is just, that'sall great, but can I find the
talent I need right
William Tincup (02:16):
now?
Right, right.
Supply and demand.
Rhea Moss (02:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Um, and also what's going onwith my competition?
Are people hiring right now?
Um, are people applying for jobsright now, you know, really just
more of those actual metrics inthe TA world that are relevant
to what we're trying to do everyday.
Right,
William Tincup (02:34):
right.
With, with tech hiring inparticular, what are you, what
are you seeing?
Let's just paint that first andwe'll dig into it.
Rhea Moss (02:41):
Yeah, I mean, I'll start by saying, um, you know,
I'm going to admit I don'treally listen to the AM radio
necessarily, but you know, thenews plays in the background of
my house a lot, I spend a lot oftime on LinkedIn, um, you can't
hide from that right side ofyour LinkedIn page with all the,
all the news, which you have toknow is obviously, those set of
articles are meant for you, andthey, they're, they know what
(03:03):
I'm reading, and they're servingup more of the type of articles
I'm reading, but, to answer yourquestion, There does seem to be
this extreme narrative that iscircling tech companies.
Um, but what's reallyinteresting is when we think of
technical applicants or folksthat are applying to technical
positions, be that in anyindustry, those headlines aren't
necessarily having the effectthat we would think they would.
(03:24):
Um, huge, huge surges in thenumber of applicants.
It's almost up 70 percent yearover year, but what's
interesting is actually there'sa slowdown in technical hiring
right now.
Um, hires are down about 20percent from last year, and then
openings are down a little,almost to 10%, which is
interesting as you think aboutthat, right?
If you think of supply anddemand, right, we've got this
(03:46):
huge surge in the supply and alittle bit of a slowdown in
demand and what that is showingright now is if your company is
trying to hire in tech or buildtalent pools in tech, it's a
really, really great time to beputting those jobs out there.
William Tincup (04:00):
So why the, why the slowdown in, I mean, again,
in just interpreting kind ofwhat you think is there, what,
why, uh, is it, is it just,they're not building more or
they're changing their directionin terms of, we, we needed
certain skills before, we don'tneed those skills now, and
they're kind of hitting pause,like, What's, uh, why?
Rhea Moss (04:21):
Why?
I think they all, we all wouldhope it's the latter.
I don't think that's the case.
We know there's a skill shortagein technical talent, and I don't
think that's going to be slowingdown in any time in the near
future.
But we also know that a lot oftimes technical teams are hired
to build new things, andbuilding new requires
investment, and the willingnessto spend, and a lot of companies
(04:42):
are either not getting thosefunds right now, We know a lot
of funding has really started todry up, um, but also a lot of
companies that are kind ofholding their breath on this
notion of whether or not therewill be a recession, which we're
still having the sameconversation a year plus later,
are saying investing in techtalent, one, is expensive, we
know that, right?
This is not an inexpensive hireto most companies.
(05:03):
And then two, it's, you want tohave that talent to invest in
the next product.
The next big project or the nextbig thing, um, and that may be
companies kind of holding off onthat for a minute and saying,
let's sell what we have and seehow that goes before we go
really make an investment inwhat's new.
It's interesting
William Tincup (05:20):
because like, uh, the VC market, especially in
our space, it's what I see is alot of what they used to call
analysis paralysis, where theventure partners don't know.
What to do with AI in the senseof like, in the mid nineties,
everyone knew the internet wascoming, but they didn't, they
(05:42):
didn't know to what degree itwas impact everything.
Right.
Now, same thing with AI.
They know it's coming.
They know it's here.
They know it's doing stuff, butthey don't, they don't know how
it plays out.
So I see a lot of venturepartners just kind of sitting on
their hands because they don'twant to make the wrong bet.
(06:02):
So I'm wondering if, like, whenyou're looking at innovation and
people, uh, not, not, notbuilding as much, maybe not, not
innovating and not, not, uh, nothiring the talent to do those
things, I wonder how much ofthat is to do with they don't
know what to build
Rhea Moss (06:18):
yet.
That's fair.
I think none of us know how thisis going to play out.
Right.
And I spend a lot of my time inthe HR and the talent
acquisition circles andconversations.
And while I think there is anoverwhelming sense.
of excitement we're on the edgeof something we all want to see
how this plays out there.
You know, the other side of thatcoin is what could go wrong,
(06:40):
right?
I'm going to date back a bithere.
Maybe five, six years ago whenwe started to see just AI, not
Gen AI, but AI started toinfiltrate and at first it was
really exciting and then youheard some companies that had a
little bit of, you know,negative headlines come out
about things they built andthese things had taken on a bias
(07:02):
of sorts or a mind of their own.
I'm thinking back of, you know,you heard about models that were
going to match candidates tojobs.
And then you heard stories ofthings like we realized the
model would, would excludepeople from.
And Female only colleges becausethe training set we used was our
current staff and we didn'treally have female interiors,
right?
I think there's this other verysmart, intelligent thing to do,
(07:26):
which is like, I don't know thatthis is like something I want to
be overly cutting edge on inthe, in the HR space.
Because from a legalperspective, from an HR
perspective, um, I think thereare going to be incredible uses
of it.
But I think in general we're allkind of going, um, let's make
sure we're not the one who makesthat first big mistake with it.
William Tincup (07:46):
That's right, and so from that, I want to ask
you, with Gen AI, how do you,how do you think this is going
to impact the supply oftechnical talent?
Because for years we would say,we don't have enough software
engineers just to build thethings that we want to build
now, much less the things in thefuture.
(08:07):
Whereas now, I don't knowPython, but I know what I want
Python to do.
I can use generative AI tocreate.
what I wanted to do.
I didn't have to go and get adegree in computer science or a
degree in software engineeringor anything like that.
Uh, so my technical skills,which used to be harder to
(08:28):
acquire, There, there, it seems,let me put an asterisk next to
that, it seems like some ofthat's not going to be as hard
to acquire those skills in thefuture.
You're going to need differentskills, you're going to need
prompting skills and other typesof skills.
You need, you know, you'll be,you know, like when the internet
(08:49):
first.
Came on the commercializedinternet, Boolean, you had to
learn, you had to know how tosearch.
Correct.
And so masters of librarysciences and librarians, they
knew how the hell to use theinternet better than anybody in
the world because they knew howto search.
So
Rhea Moss (09:07):
I think, I think there's a couple of things
there.
I'll unpack a few things yousaid.
One, I think there will beefficiencies that are brought.
Two, I think that.
There will always be a need tounderstand.
The logic and the methodologybehind something.
(09:27):
And I say this, um, because, youknow, I, I remember, um, aging
myself a little bit here, right?
But I was in high school, andwhen I was in high school,
calculus, they'd just come outwith these calculators that you
could do calculus in thecalculator, right?
And I remember all my teacherssaying we can't use your
calculator in your test becauseyou're not going to have a
calculator in your hand yourwhole life.
(09:48):
Well, it did not age well.
Um, but what I will say is Iwork with data scientists and
data analysts every day and wedo all of our analytics and, um,
you know, I'll just be very selfhonest and deprecating here and
say that I don't know that Icould do their job tomorrow if I
needed to exactly.
But there are definitely timesthat I see the numbers come up
(10:09):
and I say, like, I don't knowwhat the right answer is, but I
know that's not it.
Because I understand what wewere trying to do from a
mathematical, theoreticalperspective, and I can tell you
that the value should have comeout somewhere between 20 and 40,
and you just told me it's 350.
And I think that that is thathuman element, that even with a
(10:31):
Gen AI tool, even with someonewho, this is the difference
between someone who knows how tocode Python, Right.
Using that to make their Pythoncode spit out faster, but still
knowing when they see somethingto go, I think that computer
made a mistake.
Because there, there's a usecase that doesn't require that
human in the loop.
Then why would we even have ahuman in the role?
(10:52):
Why wouldn't we just let thething write code
William Tincup (10:54):
for us?
Right.
It's, it's interesting becauseit gets back to a conversation I
had with a software developerabout 20 years ago.
And he said, listen, there's,there's always going to be
people that can code, but whatyou need is someone that's an
architect or someone that'sstrategic that has the vision of
where that needs to go.
That's not going to besupplanted.
And you want
Rhea Moss (11:14):
to say this, did spell check and did grammar
check and Microsoft Word putcopywriters out of work?
No.
Right.
So that's where I think, youknow, yes, it's really helpful
and it takes the average personlike me who just fat fingers a
typo.
It makes me, you know, quicker,better, a little bit less.
Thanks.
Um, that's why I was sayingefficiency, but I don't know
(11:36):
necessarily that it's, it'sgoing to say this can just do
the job.
And I think we think a lot aboutthis from the ISIM side on the
recruiting front.
We're not saying that a Gen AItool should be able to go sort
through the resumes that appliedfor a job, pick the person,
convince them to work at yourcompany, make them the offer and
hire them.
Worst thing, right?
Think about that.
That is the job of a recruiter.
(11:57):
Now, could you give therecruiter some tools that will
help them Be, you know,summarize this candidate's
resume for me, or help me comeup with questions to ask that
candidate that will help mefigure out more efficiently
whether they're a fit for thisrole.
That's the type of thing I thinkwe're going to see those use
cases.
Take the people I have, let themstay good at their core skills,
(12:19):
right?
Those human relationships,right?
Connection, um, listening to ananswer and getting a feeling of
if they'd be a fit.
And then help them with theother stuff that they're
spending.
Instead of now, 20 minutesbefore an interview, they need
to read the resume, remindthemselves of the job
description, maybe let atechnology do that.
Maybe let technology start with,you know, use these three
(12:40):
questions, or here's threethings we see on the resume that
are interesting that you shouldask about, right?
I think that's where we're goingto see it become more powerful.
We talk a lot in recruitingright now, right?
The teams are smaller, a lot ofTA teams are smaller than
they've ever been, and we say,Take, you're being asked to do
more with less.
I think these tools will helpthe people that are in the roles
(13:00):
be able to do a little bit
William Tincup (13:01):
more.
I love that.
So, I've said for years forfolks that have not been through
multiple recessions ordownturns, the first thing that
comes back, at least that I canremember, is staffing, is you
see the uptick in staffingfaster.
And, and so if, if staffingfirms are starting to kind of
(13:23):
uptick, then it, then, thenbasically hiring is, is, it's
going to follow, uh, and fulltime employment is going to
follow.
Now that's kind of just kind of,um, kind of generic way to think
about it, but what do you thinkwhen, when, not if, when things
come back, especially in, intechnical hiring, what will we
(13:44):
see first?
Like, you know, it's like, Idon't know.
Did you ever, do you rememberthe, uh Is the, uh, the thing
that happened in Indonesia,where, uh, it is a tsunami, did
you ever watch any of thesevideos where the water goes out
first, it goes way, way out andlike all the animals are
running, so it's like if I'mever on a beach somewhere and
(14:08):
like the animals are runningsomewhere and the water goes
out, okay, you know what, I'mgoing with the animals.
Anyhow, um, what do we seefirst?
Like, what do you think this, weneed to keep an eye on this
because it's a leadingindicator.
If this is, if this is anuptick, then these are the
things that we'll see next.
Rhea Moss (14:26):
So we, and I say we as sort of all the companies in
the whole wide world that's nowa we, um, we saw in 2020 this
effect where we saw a lot ofrecruiters lose their roles.
And we saw a lot more, um,unemployment in that space.
And then when we started to kindof come out of the economic
(14:48):
situation that initially camewith the pandemic, um, we saw
recruiters being hired indroves.
That's right.
And I think back on, you know,those headlines that were, I can
think of one specifically offthe top of my head that was like
the hardest.
The first role to recruit for isa recruiter.
And we heard these headlinesabout, you know, certain
companies in Silicon Valleypaying these astronomical wages
(15:12):
for recruiter positions.
And the reason wasn't that theynecessarily all of a sudden felt
like these recruiters were worthit, it's that they were so
desperate to hire the otherroles that they first had to
hire the recruiter.
for the recruiters to go fillthose other positions.
Right.
We've been actually watchingrecruiter sort of key metrics
for the recruiter roles.
Um, they're called HRspecialists by their standard,
(15:34):
um, their standard occupationcode.
But what we've seen and wecontinue to see is this very,
very steep decline in openingsand hires of recruiters.
Um, I think when we're reallystarting to turn the corner,
when we're coming out of thisfrom, um, a hiring perspective.
We will see those recruiterroles really start to open up if
(15:56):
companies are being smart,because like I say a lot, you
know, if, if our CTO, Al Smith,I love to use him as an example.
Um, if Al comes to Laura, ourchief people officer and says,
Hey, Laura, I'm ready to investagain.
I'm going to hire, you know,three agile teams of software
engineers.
Um, in most companies, theanswer right now is going to be,
well, great, but I've got to gohire a recruiter.
(16:19):
To hire those folks for you, um,and when you add up all of those
time to fill and ramp times, youknow, you're looking at over
half a year.
And I think that's the piecethat, um, I would love to say
it's going to be an earlyleading indicator.
That would be if companies actreally smart.
Will it be?
I'm not sure, but I think we'llreally know times are changing.
(16:41):
Um, to your point aboutstaffing, companies turn to
staffing agencies when theydon't have that talent in house.
That's right.
I think that's what we willstart to see is those recruiter
roles open back up.
Um, for anybody who didn't catchlast month's insights report, it
is not happening yet, very muchnot happening.
Um, but what is interesting isthat the applicants to those
recruiter roles are actuallystarting to decline as well,
(17:03):
which says there's a veryinteresting kind of thought here
is are recruiters over it?
We've done this to the pool oftalent right now.
We have really put them throughthe ringer the last couple of
years, right?
Um, you know, for you.
Wait a minute.
Yes, there is.
We'll pay you a lot.
Just kidding.
There's not a job for you.
We might be off for now, butit's a lot less than what you
got a year and a half ago.
(17:24):
I mean, think about what therecruiting profession has been
through.
Yeah.
It's psychotic.
And think about the skills thosepeople have.
Oh my goodness.
I mean, just general businessskills, right?
Like you could make them, youcould put them in sales because
they've been selling.
Your company, not your productsfor a long time.
You could put them in having anydifficult conversation because
that's what they do for aliving.
(17:45):
Um, they are great at peoplerelationships.
They're great at persuasion.
And I think that talent, we maysee a huge skill shortage there.
Because I think that talent isgoing, I'm looking at these
other roles in my company andthey have not been fired and
hired and fired and hired andfired.
Um, And I think that we may seewhen that time comes, some
(18:05):
really interesting headlinesaround not being able to get
people to take those positions.
William Tincup (18:09):
I like that.
I like that a lot.
You mentioned the InsightsReport.
Um, I was going to ask you thequestion of how do you distill
this information for yourclients?
Uh, because you know, you'resitting on thousands of clients
and they are curious about howthis is playing out.
Yeah.
So how do you, what do you, whatdo you do with the Insights
Report?
Rhea Moss (18:28):
Well, I get to talk to wonderful people like you.
Uh huh, uh huh.
I love to share it at industryconferences.
You know, we've been on thecircuit this year.
It's been a great time.
Um, but we also put out amonthly report on isims.
com slash insights.
I will shamelessly plug.
Publicly available every month.
Always starts out with the threekey indicators in the economy,
(18:49):
right?
Just our companies.
Opening jobs, are peopleapplying for them and are
companies hiring them?
Again, not survey, just actualusage data of 6, 000 customers.
Uh, that comes out mid month,uh, actually came out this
morning.
If you're listening later, itcame out on November 16th for
this month.
Um, and then we also, if you area customer of ISIMS, we also do
(19:09):
provide services where we givesome really deep dive, uh,
regular cadence reporting oncertain topics, certain
industries or higher types.
And then finally, um, for thosespecial few, we also will do one
on one consulting engagementswhere we'll go in and build full
blown, you know, customanalytics and benchmarks for
companies for the businessproblems that they're trying to
(19:29):
solve.
Drops mic, walks
William Tincup (19:31):
off stage.
Thank you so much for your time.
I love talking to you.
Of course.
It's
Rhea Moss (19:36):
always
William Tincup (19:37):
fun.
Well, there you go.
And thanks for everyonelistening.
Until next time.
This is William Tincup, and you're listening to
the Recruiting Daily podcast.
Today, we have Ria Mollison fromiSIMS, and we are going to be
talking about labor, market, andtech hiring deep dive.
So we get to talk about numbers,and this is going to be fun.
So, uh, Ria, would you do us afavor and introduce yourself and
what you
Rhea Moss (00:51):
do at iSIMS?
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
Um, I am always excited to talklabor market, always excited to
talk data.
Um, I lead our insights programat ISIMS, which is our research
program that gets to look at theaggregate activity of the whole
ISIMS customer base.
So what are our 6, 000 customersdoing?
(01:12):
Are people applying for jobs?
Are companies finding thosepeople?
How long is it taking?
And then really get to share itwith kind of the rest of the
world, which we all seem kind ofsitting on the edge of our seat
right now, waiting for thatinformation.
William Tincup (01:23):
Yeah, it's, it's uh, 2024, you know, what is it,
uh, six weeks away and you getAgain, you turn on any of the AM
radio shows and get half thepeople that are going to say,
it's going to be worse thanever.
And then you get some peoplethat are like really super
optimistic, like, you know,inflation didn't go down as bad
as, as much as we thought itwould like, okay, maybe that's a
(01:45):
sign.
I don't know.
Rhea Moss (01:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the million dollarquestion.
I think we'd all be rich if weknew the answer to that
question.
I think.
That what's interesting as welook at it from a talent
acquisition perspective is wecan look at all of the economic
data that we want.
You know, what is unemploymentdoing?
What are resignation rateslooking like?
What about reductions in force?
(02:07):
What about inflation?
And then wage inflation?
But what I hear when we talk somuch, when I talk to so many of
our customers is just, that'sall great, but can I find the
talent I need right
William Tincup (02:16):
now?
Right, right.
Supply and demand.
Rhea Moss (02:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Um, and also what's going onwith my competition?
Are people hiring right now?
Um, are people applying for jobsright now, you know, really just
more of those actual metrics inthe TA world that are relevant
to what we're trying to do everyday.
Right,
William Tincup (02:34):
right.
With, with tech hiring inparticular, what are you, what
are you seeing?
Let's just paint that first andwe'll dig into it.
Rhea Moss (02:41):
Yeah, I mean, I'll start by saying, um, you know,
I'm going to admit I don'treally listen to the AM radio
necessarily, but you know, thenews plays in the background of
my house a lot, I spend a lot oftime on LinkedIn, um, you can't
hide from that right side ofyour LinkedIn page with all the,
all the news, which you have toknow is obviously, those set of
articles are meant for you, andthey, they're, they know what
(03:03):
I'm reading, and they're servingup more of the type of articles
I'm reading, but, to answer yourquestion, There does seem to be
this extreme narrative that iscircling tech companies.
Um, but what's reallyinteresting is when we think of
technical applicants or folksthat are applying to technical
positions, be that in anyindustry, those headlines aren't
necessarily having the effectthat we would think they would.
(03:24):
Um, huge, huge surges in thenumber of applicants.
It's almost up 70 percent yearover year, but what's
interesting is actually there'sa slowdown in technical hiring
right now.
Um, hires are down about 20percent from last year, and then
openings are down a little,almost to 10%, which is
interesting as you think aboutthat, right?
If you think of supply anddemand, right, we've got this
(03:46):
huge surge in the supply and alittle bit of a slowdown in
demand and what that is showingright now is if your company is
trying to hire in tech or buildtalent pools in tech, it's a
really, really great time to beputting those jobs out there.
William Tincup (04:00):
So why the, why the slowdown in, I mean, again,
in just interpreting kind ofwhat you think is there, what,
why, uh, is it, is it just,they're not building more or
they're changing their directionin terms of, we, we needed
certain skills before, we don'tneed those skills now, and
they're kind of hitting pause,like, What's, uh, why?
Rhea Moss (04:21):
Why?
I think they all, we all wouldhope it's the latter.
I don't think that's the case.
We know there's a skill shortagein technical talent, and I don't
think that's going to be slowingdown in any time in the near
future.
But we also know that a lot oftimes technical teams are hired
to build new things, andbuilding new requires
investment, and the willingnessto spend, and a lot of companies
(04:42):
are either not getting thosefunds right now, We know a lot
of funding has really started todry up, um, but also a lot of
companies that are kind ofholding their breath on this
notion of whether or not therewill be a recession, which we're
still having the sameconversation a year plus later,
are saying investing in techtalent, one, is expensive, we
know that, right?
This is not an inexpensive hireto most companies.
(05:03):
And then two, it's, you want tohave that talent to invest in
the next product.
The next big project or the nextbig thing, um, and that may be
companies kind of holding off onthat for a minute and saying,
let's sell what we have and seehow that goes before we go
really make an investment inwhat's new.
It's interesting
William Tincup (05:20):
because like, uh, the VC market, especially in
our space, it's what I see is alot of what they used to call
analysis paralysis, where theventure partners don't know.
What to do with AI in the senseof like, in the mid nineties,
everyone knew the internet wascoming, but they didn't, they
(05:42):
didn't know to what degree itwas impact everything.
Right.
Now, same thing with AI.
They know it's coming.
They know it's here.
They know it's doing stuff, butthey don't, they don't know how
it plays out.
So I see a lot of venturepartners just kind of sitting on
their hands because they don'twant to make the wrong bet.
(06:02):
So I'm wondering if, like, whenyou're looking at innovation and
people, uh, not, not, notbuilding as much, maybe not, not
innovating and not, not, uh, nothiring the talent to do those
things, I wonder how much ofthat is to do with they don't
know what to build
Rhea Moss (06:18):
yet.
That's fair.
I think none of us know how thisis going to play out.
Right.
And I spend a lot of my time inthe HR and the talent
acquisition circles andconversations.
And while I think there is anoverwhelming sense.
of excitement we're on the edgeof something we all want to see
how this plays out there.
You know, the other side of thatcoin is what could go wrong,
(06:40):
right?
I'm going to date back a bithere.
Maybe five, six years ago whenwe started to see just AI, not
Gen AI, but AI started toinfiltrate and at first it was
really exciting and then youheard some companies that had a
little bit of, you know,negative headlines come out
about things they built andthese things had taken on a bias
(07:02):
of sorts or a mind of their own.
I'm thinking back of, you know,you heard about models that were
going to match candidates tojobs.
And then you heard stories ofthings like we realized the
model would, would excludepeople from.
And Female only colleges becausethe training set we used was our
current staff and we didn'treally have female interiors,
right?
I think there's this other verysmart, intelligent thing to do,
(07:26):
which is like, I don't know thatthis is like something I want to
be overly cutting edge on inthe, in the HR space.
Because from a legalperspective, from an HR
perspective, um, I think thereare going to be incredible uses
of it.
But I think in general we're allkind of going, um, let's make
sure we're not the one who makesthat first big mistake with it.
William Tincup (07:46):
That's right, and so from that, I want to ask
you, with Gen AI, how do you,how do you think this is going
to impact the supply oftechnical talent?
Because for years we would say,we don't have enough software
engineers just to build thethings that we want to build
now, much less the things in thefuture.
(08:07):
Whereas now, I don't knowPython, but I know what I want
Python to do.
I can use generative AI tocreate.
what I wanted to do.
I didn't have to go and get adegree in computer science or a
degree in software engineeringor anything like that.
Uh, so my technical skills,which used to be harder to
(08:28):
acquire, There, there, it seems,let me put an asterisk next to
that, it seems like some ofthat's not going to be as hard
to acquire those skills in thefuture.
You're going to need differentskills, you're going to need
prompting skills and other typesof skills.
You need, you know, you'll be,you know, like when the internet
(08:49):
first.
Came on the commercializedinternet, Boolean, you had to
learn, you had to know how tosearch.
Correct.
And so masters of librarysciences and librarians, they
knew how the hell to use theinternet better than anybody in
the world because they knew howto search.
So
Rhea Moss (09:07):
I think, I think there's a couple of things
there.
I'll unpack a few things yousaid.
One, I think there will beefficiencies that are brought.
Two, I think that.
There will always be a need tounderstand.
The logic and the methodologybehind something.
(09:27):
And I say this, um, because, youknow, I, I remember, um, aging
myself a little bit here, right?
But I was in high school, andwhen I was in high school,
calculus, they'd just come outwith these calculators that you
could do calculus in thecalculator, right?
And I remember all my teacherssaying we can't use your
calculator in your test becauseyou're not going to have a
calculator in your hand yourwhole life.
(09:48):
Well, it did not age well.
Um, but what I will say is Iwork with data scientists and
data analysts every day and wedo all of our analytics and, um,
you know, I'll just be very selfhonest and deprecating here and
say that I don't know that Icould do their job tomorrow if I
needed to exactly.
But there are definitely timesthat I see the numbers come up
(10:09):
and I say, like, I don't knowwhat the right answer is, but I
know that's not it.
Because I understand what wewere trying to do from a
mathematical, theoreticalperspective, and I can tell you
that the value should have comeout somewhere between 20 and 40,
and you just told me it's 350.
And I think that that is thathuman element, that even with a
(10:31):
Gen AI tool, even with someonewho, this is the difference
between someone who knows how tocode Python, Right.
Using that to make their Pythoncode spit out faster, but still
knowing when they see somethingto go, I think that computer
made a mistake.
Because there, there's a usecase that doesn't require that
human in the loop.
Then why would we even have ahuman in the role?
(10:52):
Why wouldn't we just let thething write code
William Tincup (10:54):
for us?
Right.
It's, it's interesting becauseit gets back to a conversation I
had with a software developerabout 20 years ago.
And he said, listen, there's,there's always going to be
people that can code, but whatyou need is someone that's an
architect or someone that'sstrategic that has the vision of
where that needs to go.
That's not going to besupplanted.
And you want
Rhea Moss (11:14):
to say this, did spell check and did grammar
check and Microsoft Word putcopywriters out of work?
No.
Right.
So that's where I think, youknow, yes, it's really helpful
and it takes the average personlike me who just fat fingers a
typo.
It makes me, you know, quicker,better, a little bit less.
Thanks.
Um, that's why I was sayingefficiency, but I don't know
(11:36):
necessarily that it's, it'sgoing to say this can just do
the job.
And I think we think a lot aboutthis from the ISIM side on the
recruiting front.
We're not saying that a Gen AItool should be able to go sort
through the resumes that appliedfor a job, pick the person,
convince them to work at yourcompany, make them the offer and
hire them.
Worst thing, right?
Think about that.
That is the job of a recruiter.
(11:57):
Now, could you give therecruiter some tools that will
help them Be, you know,summarize this candidate's
resume for me, or help me comeup with questions to ask that
candidate that will help mefigure out more efficiently
whether they're a fit for thisrole.
That's the type of thing I thinkwe're going to see those use
cases.
Take the people I have, let themstay good at their core skills,
(12:19):
right?
Those human relationships,right?
Connection, um, listening to ananswer and getting a feeling of
if they'd be a fit.
And then help them with theother stuff that they're
spending.
Instead of now, 20 minutesbefore an interview, they need
to read the resume, remindthemselves of the job
description, maybe let atechnology do that.
Maybe let technology start with,you know, use these three
(12:40):
questions, or here's threethings we see on the resume that
are interesting that you shouldask about, right?
I think that's where we're goingto see it become more powerful.
We talk a lot in recruitingright now, right?
The teams are smaller, a lot ofTA teams are smaller than
they've ever been, and we say,Take, you're being asked to do
more with less.
I think these tools will helpthe people that are in the roles
(13:00):
be able to do a little bit
William Tincup (13:01):
more.
I love that.
So, I've said for years forfolks that have not been through
multiple recessions ordownturns, the first thing that
comes back, at least that I canremember, is staffing, is you
see the uptick in staffingfaster.
And, and so if, if staffingfirms are starting to kind of
(13:23):
uptick, then it, then, thenbasically hiring is, is, it's
going to follow, uh, and fulltime employment is going to
follow.
Now that's kind of just kind of,um, kind of generic way to think
about it, but what do you thinkwhen, when, not if, when things
come back, especially in, intechnical hiring, what will we
(13:44):
see first?
Like, you know, it's like, Idon't know.
Did you ever, do you rememberthe, uh Is the, uh, the thing
that happened in Indonesia,where, uh, it is a tsunami, did
you ever watch any of thesevideos where the water goes out
first, it goes way, way out andlike all the animals are
running, so it's like if I'mever on a beach somewhere and
(14:08):
like the animals are runningsomewhere and the water goes
out, okay, you know what, I'mgoing with the animals.
Anyhow, um, what do we seefirst?
Like, what do you think this, weneed to keep an eye on this
because it's a leadingindicator.
If this is, if this is anuptick, then these are the
things that we'll see next.
Rhea Moss (14:26):
So we, and I say we as sort of all the companies in
the whole wide world that's nowa we, um, we saw in 2020 this
effect where we saw a lot ofrecruiters lose their roles.
And we saw a lot more, um,unemployment in that space.
And then when we started to kindof come out of the economic
(14:48):
situation that initially camewith the pandemic, um, we saw
recruiters being hired indroves.
That's right.
And I think back on, you know,those headlines that were, I can
think of one specifically offthe top of my head that was like
the hardest.
The first role to recruit for isa recruiter.
And we heard these headlinesabout, you know, certain
companies in Silicon Valleypaying these astronomical wages
(15:12):
for recruiter positions.
And the reason wasn't that theynecessarily all of a sudden felt
like these recruiters were worthit, it's that they were so
desperate to hire the otherroles that they first had to
hire the recruiter.
for the recruiters to go fillthose other positions.
Right.
We've been actually watchingrecruiter sort of key metrics
for the recruiter roles.
Um, they're called HRspecialists by their standard,
(15:34):
um, their standard occupationcode.
But what we've seen and wecontinue to see is this very,
very steep decline in openingsand hires of recruiters.
Um, I think when we're reallystarting to turn the corner,
when we're coming out of thisfrom, um, a hiring perspective.
We will see those recruiterroles really start to open up if
(15:56):
companies are being smart,because like I say a lot, you
know, if, if our CTO, Al Smith,I love to use him as an example.
Um, if Al comes to Laura, ourchief people officer and says,
Hey, Laura, I'm ready to investagain.
I'm going to hire, you know,three agile teams of software
engineers.
Um, in most companies, theanswer right now is going to be,
well, great, but I've got to gohire a recruiter.
(16:19):
To hire those folks for you, um,and when you add up all of those
time to fill and ramp times, youknow, you're looking at over
half a year.
And I think that's the piecethat, um, I would love to say
it's going to be an earlyleading indicator.
That would be if companies actreally smart.
Will it be?
I'm not sure, but I think we'llreally know times are changing.
(16:41):
Um, to your point aboutstaffing, companies turn to
staffing agencies when theydon't have that talent in house.
That's right.
I think that's what we willstart to see is those recruiter
roles open back up.
Um, for anybody who didn't catchlast month's insights report, it
is not happening yet, very muchnot happening.
Um, but what is interesting isthat the applicants to those
recruiter roles are actuallystarting to decline as well,
(17:03):
which says there's a veryinteresting kind of thought here
is are recruiters over it?
We've done this to the pool oftalent right now.
We have really put them throughthe ringer the last couple of
years, right?
Um, you know, for you.
Wait a minute.
Yes, there is.
We'll pay you a lot.
Just kidding.
There's not a job for you.
We might be off for now, butit's a lot less than what you
got a year and a half ago.
(17:24):
I mean, think about what therecruiting profession has been
through.
Yeah.
It's psychotic.
And think about the skills thosepeople have.
Oh my goodness.
I mean, just general businessskills, right?
Like you could make them, youcould put them in sales because
they've been selling.
Your company, not your productsfor a long time.
You could put them in having anydifficult conversation because
that's what they do for aliving.
(17:45):
Um, they are great at peoplerelationships.
They're great at persuasion.
And I think that talent, we maysee a huge skill shortage there.
Because I think that talent isgoing, I'm looking at these
other roles in my company andthey have not been fired and
hired and fired and hired andfired.
Um, And I think that we may seewhen that time comes, some
(18:05):
really interesting headlinesaround not being able to get
people to take those positions.
William Tincup (18:09):
I like that.
I like that a lot.
You mentioned the InsightsReport.
Um, I was going to ask you thequestion of how do you distill
this information for yourclients?
Uh, because you know, you'resitting on thousands of clients
and they are curious about howthis is playing out.
Yeah.
So how do you, what do you, whatdo you do with the Insights
Report?
Rhea Moss (18:28):
Well, I get to talk to wonderful people like you.
Uh huh, uh huh.
I love to share it at industryconferences.
You know, we've been on thecircuit this year.
It's been a great time.
Um, but we also put out amonthly report on isims.
com slash insights.
I will shamelessly plug.
Publicly available every month.
Always starts out with the threekey indicators in the economy,
(18:49):
right?
Just our companies.
Opening jobs, are peopleapplying for them and are
companies hiring them?
Again, not survey, just actualusage data of 6, 000 customers.
Uh, that comes out mid month,uh, actually came out this
morning.
If you're listening later, itcame out on November 16th for
this month.
Um, and then we also, if you area customer of ISIMS, we also do
(19:09):
provide services where we givesome really deep dive, uh,
regular cadence reporting oncertain topics, certain
industries or higher types.
And then finally, um, for thosespecial few, we also will do one
on one consulting engagementswhere we'll go in and build full
blown, you know, customanalytics and benchmarks for
companies for the businessproblems that they're trying to
(19:29):
solve.
Drops mic, walks
William Tincup (19:31):
off stage.
Thank you so much for your time.
I love talking to you.
Of course.
It's
Rhea Moss (19:36):
always
William Tincup (19:37):
fun.
Well, there you go.
And thanks for everyonelistening.
Until next time.
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