Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey everybody,
welcome back to the Sourcing
School podcast brought to you byOlio.
We are here live at HRTech.
I am joined by my co-host, ryanLeary my ride or die, and we
have also got Shelly Stekrel inthe house.
And then, finally, we arejoined by Craig Fisher, the CEO
of TalentNet Media and newlyminted bestselling author of
(00:28):
Hiring Humans.
Mr Fisher, what's going on, myfriend?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Ryan, it's really
good to see you.
I think I've seen you everyfive minutes for the last.
Feels like you're in a half.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I was going to say,
like we've been together a lot.
It's been like every five weeks.
I agree with that.
I didn't think about that.
Now we're just coming back fromRackfest.
We're both wearing our pinkshirts here on Wednesday.
Because we wear pink onWednesday, Shout out to anybody
who got the reference to MeanGirls.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I did not get that
reference you have three
daughters.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
How did you not get
the reference to the movie Mean
Girls?
I've seen it.
I didn't get the reference.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I think my wife puts
Mean Girls on about once a
quarter.
I watch it a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I'm the cool mom.
Yeah, I'm the cool mom, allright.
So, craig, there's so manydifferent places to get this
conversation started with here.
I know that, like I introducedyou and said, we've got the book
, we've got the leadership,we've got what you're doing in
advisory capacities to differentcompanies.
Let me start by just asking asimple question what's the vibe
(01:35):
here at HR Tech in Vegas?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
So there's a lot more
activity this year than there
was last year.
I think last year was a littlebit stale, a little bit slow.
I think vendors are energizedthis year.
I think they feel like thetraffic's good, there's more
staff in the booth, there's morestaff in the booth and it's
more fun.
I mean it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So what you're seeing
?
You're seeing a lot of vendors,but are you seeing a lot of
practitioners?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
as well.
I'm seeing buyers.
Yes, I've been introduced toseveral what we call
practitioners and vendors,called buyers, and isn't it sad
that that's what we boil thisdown to?
But that's what it is Peoplewho can make decisions about HR
technology.
And, yeah, I've met a lot ofthem.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So we've talked ad
nauseam about generative AI
today.
That's been a hot topic.
What topics are you seeingpermeate to the surface here at
HR Tech besides generative AIRight?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So one of the things
that I'm pretty hot on is my
theory that CRMs are running lowon usability, and I'm not a
huge CRM fan.
For the recruiting space, Ithink that there are services
(02:57):
and platforms that can do someof that stuff, but putting a CRM
seat in the hands of everyrecruiter is just not going to
be a thing of any.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Okay, so Ryan Lear is
shaking his head.
Ryan, why do you feel that way?
I don't think it was everreally a thing.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
It was forced.
Yeah, it was thought that itneeded to be, but I don't ever
think that's because the ATSsdon't have the capability, so
you have to have something.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, they have
something.
Yeah, not saying you have to bea recruiter.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
That's like putting
recruitment, branding or
marketing in the hands of arecruiter.
Or even I just gave Ryan a look.
I just gave Ryan a look forthose of you who are not
watching the podcast or evenyeah, like this one always
killed me where, when I wassitting at a desk, we were
responsible for submittingdiverse slates.
That's not my job as arecruiter.
(03:44):
My job as a recruiter is togive you the best person.
Now, given that long ago it wasvery visual, yeah Right, so you
were making those decisionsbased on what you saw.
You didn't have the technologyto filter that out for you.
That has to come from top down.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Well, so, Shaly and I
agree on this as well as what
you just said that marketing isthe opposite side of the coin
from sourcing Right.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yep Sourcing is
active.
Sourcing is cool.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Marketing is passive,
but there's a lot of money
badly spent in recruitmentmarketing.
I think that the data thatcomes from recruitment marketing
vendors is crap.
I think very few companiesstill can actually identify
their source of hire.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Oh, they definitely
can identify it, it's linked in.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, Everybody's
linked in right.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Or indeed.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, and in volume
society, where I do a lot of
work with big, massive employers, I see things that are light
tech that are easily able toconnect and integrate with an
ATS now, and so a contact centerlike Pivot CX or something like
that can be the glue betweenmultiple other things and even
(04:59):
for an RPO, connect to all yourcustomers ATS systems and have a
good way to contact peoplewithout a full blown $500,000
CRM.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
You know what.
So CRMs are just copies of thedata and I've always maintained
that that's an absolute waste oftime.
So way back in the beginningyou know staffing firm days
people wanted to.
They wanted to download.
One of the first questions thatI got as a consultant Can I?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
download all the data
.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Can I download the
data?
I'm like you want to downloadthe internet.
Why you want to copy.
You don't really need a CRM forthat.
What you need is a way to tagsomeone in a tokenized fashion
that allows that identity to bemulti-use.
That's really what you need.
(05:51):
You don't need a CRM.
You need a way to say this isBrian Fink and identifies you
know you as Brian Fink, and thenit tracks all the things that
you are online.
You don't need a CRM to have acopy of the name Brian Fink and
every email that you've eversent and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Or a Google Sheet.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, so that's
always just been a complete
fallacy.
You're not really.
You're essentially boiling theocean.
You're trying to duplicate theinternet, so what you need is a
system that keeps track of thatinteraction.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So is there something
like an eightfold say that says
okay, brian Fink came into anorganization five years ago and
at this point in his career weassume he's had this much
training in these types ofthings.
His job has taken him to dothese types of things.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
He's probably got
skills that can do other things
in the organization.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
An eightfold.
I mean they sell this right asa thing.
I think maybe it works a littlebit.
I think Seekout does a prettygood job of some of that stuff
as well.
But you know, is sort of thisthe next iteration of hiring,
because you're tapping yourinternal database first, if you
can.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
If you can tap your
internal database, it's relevant
.
It's relevant, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Here's the problem
that I ran into, a very real
problem.
I had a VP that is verystrategic more strategic than
any of the other VPs that I'veworked with at this organization
and he asked the question whatdoes our internal tenant look
for for this particular jobtitle?
You know a very specific jobtitle, down to the level right,
like a software engineer, seniorsoftware engineer two.
(07:34):
You know very but what are thekeywords?
Very specific?
Well, he wanted to knowinternally what the you know.
So you can't go externally andlook for that, because none of
the people that are in thatcategory use that job title
externally.
I know exactly who they werebecause in the HRIS system their
job title and their level issenior software engineer two.
So I made a list there's 35 ofthem specifically at that level
(07:56):
right, and I went and tried tofind their background
information so that I couldcreate profiles for them, so
that I could aggregate theprofile so I can go back to them
with an answer as to what thetypical software engineer two's
profile looks like.
Right, I only found 17 of them.
Oh, this is the story you weretelling at dinner the other
night.
I only found 17 of them, sothat what you just described
(08:20):
would fail.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, and I agree
with you Does it not on LinkedIn
.
Well, okay, and I had thisconversation on a podcast that I
did a live stream with lastweek.
I think and I keep hearing thisthat we're in sort of an AI
bubble, and I know we're tryingnot to just talk about
generative AI, but we're aboutto be in a workforce data
(08:44):
explosion of actual usefulanalytics, because what AI is
good at is summarizing Right,and so that data that you're
looking for and the data thatthe employer would be looking
for.
They could take all thehistorical data that we've got
that we don't really do shitwith because workforce planning
is nonsense and actually havesomething useful yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
The problem with that
, Craig, is going to be most of
us like the creativity to ideatewhat the question is that we
want to ask.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yes, well, and the
other problem with that is, as
you know, as we all know,there's turnover within talent
acquisition and HR teams on aregular basis, and so these
projects that get started, someof them, maybe someone has a
good idea.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
And then they leave
Six months it's gone.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, ryan, you're
nodding over there.
What's your takeaway from this?
Speaker 4 (09:32):
I'm just taking it in
.
I'm just taking it in.
I think, craig, you saidsomething that I fully agree
with is that we're on the vergeof a data explosion Meaningful
Meaningful and I think that hasbeen probably top of mind on the
topic of debate over the lastumpteen years everybody talking
(09:54):
about data analytics and datathis and data that and all this
other stuff, and I think nowwe're going to see something
fruitful out of this and it'sinteresting.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I think the two most
useful KPIs for any organization
that have historically beenmostly hot air are sales
forecasting and workforceplanning.
Now we know about salesforecasting.
Okay, I've got this much in theproper.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I've got this much
build and so we kind of think
that in the next quarter wemight sell X and that doesn't
work.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
We know we can close
three out of 10 calls we make.
We got 20 calls scheduled.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
We know we're going
to close six deals, yeah
supposedly, supposedly, right,but now I think and I think this
group agrees that that data isgoing to be way more accurate,
way more actionable, and I meanI'm excited for the future.
And still, somebody has to usethe tools.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, why Slight
chambers and chainsaws don't
work on themselves?
I'm sitting here and I'm tryingto figure out the recruiters
that just hit LinkedIn all daylong.
How are they going to use thisdata, or are they just?
Speaker 3 (11:11):
gonna.
They're not, you know?
No, they're not, you needanother job.
Yeah, it's a different position, it's a whole different
position.
It's another job, it's aspecialized job.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
When I look at it
from the sales side, like you're
saying, now, what I'menvisioning is the AI going in
and saying here's just not yourfunnel, your pipe and all that
stuff.
It's based on yourconversations.
Here's what we're reallyexpecting.
Here's all your messages.
Here's how many times youcommunicate.
Here's what you said.
Here's how they responded.
(11:39):
Now it's going to be able togive you an informed decision
and say you can truly expect notsix deals to close, two deals
to close.
So, based on that, the honetmodel.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Exactly the honet
model.
Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
All right, I think
that's an ender.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
All right, so we're
bringing it down.
Put a lid on it.
Okay, put a lid on it.
Before I put a lid on it, I dowant to give Craig a shout out.
Craig, you have an awesomeevent that is coming up in
Dallas on November 9th.
Do you want to tell anybodyabout Talent NET Live?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yes, the Talent NET
Live conference.
You can find out about it attalentnetlivecom.
It is one of the.
I will just-.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
You're biased, let me
say I'm completely unbiased
opinion.
It's one of the betterconferences that are out there.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, the content is
actionable.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
It is definitely the
best live talent conference in
Dallas.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, it's definitely
that.
It's an intimate affair.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It's really good.
Like Craig, I'm going to grabthe mic from you.
It's a close-knit group.
There are going to be about 300people that are going to be
there.
You're going to have theopportunity to go hands-on, to
go deep with sourcing technology.
You're going to haveconversations with individuals
which are going to move you.
There's going to be really goodnetworking.
There's going to be really goodpresentations, presentations
that are going to be brought bysome of the industry's very best
(12:59):
.
They're going to start and kickoff the conversation and get
you thinking, and I think thatthat is the biggest takeaway
from this event is?
It always makes me think, Craig, what do you want to say about
your?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
event.
William Tin Cup calls it aspeakers event because all of
our favorite people and you gotto get Shaly there next come and
share their newest stuff andtry it out at Talent NET before
they go on the road with it forthe next year and so all the
stuff that we've learned asanalysts and operators and
(13:29):
consultants, we were sharing ina group of our peers at that
time and the audience is part ofit, and so we're all peers in
this group.
You might be sitting next to avendor or a talent leader or a
CEO, and that's how the audienceis, and, yes, we're biased
Right.
We're practitioner and we'll begiving away some signed copies
(13:50):
of my book Hiring Humans whenyou can find out more about that
at hiring-.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
I heard he's gonna
have a killer podcast down there
.
You know these websites they'revery obscure.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
The book is called
Hiring Humans and the website's
Hiring Humans.
I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, I should have
bought the domain for the
TalkTekToMecom.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I'm an SEO guy.
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So we're gonna wrap
this up.
It is day one.
We have come to the thrillingconclusion of HR Tech.
Want to thank the team at Oliofor making sure that we had a
great day here.
You have a great day too.