October 27, 2023 • 22 mins
In this episode, Shally Steckerl and Ryan Leary chat with Jonathan Prothero, President of TalentNet. They delve into the role of AI in HR technology, complexities of diverse systems integration, shifts in talent acquisition, and the concept of building talent communities.
Jonathan shares his insights on how talent communities can improve employee engagement and offer fresh, exciting opportunities within organizations. The discussion also touches on the evolving face of HR space over the decades and the necessity for future platforms to be adaptable and versatile.
It's a deep dive into the future of HR technology and the role AI will play.
Special mini series recorded with Oleeo at HR Tech 2023 with hosts Ryan Leary, Brian Fink, and Shally Steckerl.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
All right party people.
This is Shali's Deckerlefilling in for Brian Fink.
He's usually the one that'sdoing the openers.
We are live on the floor of theHR Tech Expo Exposition
Exposition.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
All things technology .
Speaker 1 (00:22):
We are guests of the Olio people in their booth
manning their podcast station.
And with us today.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
well, I have Ryan, you do have Ryan, I've been here
all day.
Ryan Leary, I'll be here allday tomorrow, recruiting daily.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And Jonathan.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Prothero, prothero, close enough.
Yeah, not bad Prothero.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Does a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, I've been in HR space since 1998.
Don't hold that against me 1988.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
1988.
98.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
That's two years after I got.
So you know I got two years onit.
Okay, don't hold that againstme.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, Ryan, this is his first week.
Oh well done.
Welcome to the industry.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I wish Sorry to hear that Started recruiting.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So back in the day, on the phone, smalan and Dylan
Started a staff informant in2004.
Live and well, today, big onein Canada.
I'm from Toronto.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We won't hold that against you for sure, thank you.
Thank you, go, leafs.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Stepped away from that organization Part-time in
2013.
Full-time in 2017 to foundTalentnet.
We're a talent acquisitionplatform focused originally in
the contingent labor space, butnow full-time as well, and we
can get into the gory details ofwhat that means and sounds like
Maybe too gory, I think, forthis audience.
Right.
So yeah, this is our secondyear here at HR Tech.
(01:44):
It's been good, good coupledays.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
What's it like on the floor?
Tell us what you've beenexperiencing walking around.
What do you see?
A?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
lot of it's interesting.
The big thing I see this yearmore than anything is equity
people Interesting Growth equity.
I guess there's money out therethat's not been put to work yet
, so we're running into a few ofthose people.
But yeah, it's good.
Tech is moving in the rightdirection.
A little slower than I kind ofthought.
I've sat through some of thepresentations and not as much
(02:12):
discussion about AI and some ofthe disruption as I thought was
going to be here these lastcouple days, but good otherwise.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So now I haven't gotten to sit in any sessions.
I haven't even walked the flooryet.
Have you walked the floor?
I have walked the floor severaltimes.
I have not.
I've been sitting here all daytalking.
What are you seeing?
That's on the floor?
Companies, technology, what'sreally caught your eye?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, the ones that are jumping out, obviously, with
things like chat, gpt andwhat's happening with AI and AI
platforms, how these especiallythe older sort of the big beasts
within HR, how they're startingto incorporate them slowly, but
I think it's going to make bigchanges in the space that we
work in.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I'm afraid it's going to blend everything.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It.
Might, you know, listen from atalent acquisition seat, which
is where I spend all my time.
It's going to make the lives ofpeople looking for resources a
lot easier.
You know we're working onsomething right now in our labs
with GPT.
We work with Google with theirlarge language model, bert, but
also with GPT, and we use 4.0.
The stuff that you can do interms of having a live
(03:25):
conversation with a databasesounds like a weird thing, but
you know you can go in and say,hey, show me the top three Java
developers I have in the LasVegas area and you know real
live conversation have come upand said here they are okay,
well, give me the person who'smost active in the database that
applies the most job spin, giveme somebody that we've spoken
to in the last 30 days.
(03:46):
Just that sort ofconversational discussion.
Yeah, it's remarkable to see youknow, basically, a software,
respond to queries like that andif you're a recruiter, you know
you think about what comesafter that.
So sure I can have this sort ofreal life conversation with an
AI model.
Now, what happens when I canautomate that and say, hey, if
(04:06):
this type of person comes along,apply them to these types of
roles.
That's going to make arecruiter's life completely
different.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Where do you see so, with the inflection of all the
AI, all the tools that we'reseeing out here, solutions out
here this week, where do youthink this is going to come in
and impact HR as a whole?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well, again, the seat that I sit in is talent
acquisition, so finding talent.
If your platforms aren't thesecompanies we're talking to if
their platforms aren't alreadylooking at AI models to help
augment what they're doing, theywill be in the near future.
So I think that's a big onethat's going to affect it
quickly.
We focus in the area ofbuilding talent communities,
(04:50):
branded talent communities forFortune 1000s, and if I'm a
brand like a Meta or an Amazonor a Pfizer and I've got two,
three, four, 500,000 peoplecoming to my career page every
month, having the ability to useAI to keep those people
interacting with my brand,that's going to be a huge
benefit.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
So I got a question.
You mentioned talentcommunities.
That's something Jolly thatwe've been talking about
probably for the last twodecades.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, the concept of talent community has been
misappropriated so manydifferent ways.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, so I'm curious.
So I know what your definition.
I want you to share that witheverybody.
But Jonathan, when you sayyou're building talent
communities, what exactly areyou doing, and where does tech
come into that Sure?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
so, if you think of the space that we live in today
HR and I grew up in contingentright, so I don't the platforms
that are here are notnecessarily the same platforms I
grew up with.
I grew up in that contract roletype world where you're dealing
with vendor management systems,not ATSs.
But, to answer your question,around the space and
(06:01):
specifically where it's startingto change and impact, you know,
we see what your definition oftalent community is changing as
well and I'm curious to hearwhat your definition of a talent
community is.
For us it's any type of worker.
So right now, roughly 30% and aFortune 1000 is non-employee
(06:21):
workforce.
The other 70% are full-timeworkers.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Non-employee workforce.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Non-employee workforce.
So they're Former employees?
No, they're outsourced.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Future employees.
So it's not source counterhouse, sow, g-e-a, whatever it
is Non-direct employees got itCorrect.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
So for us, a talent community, takes that 30% and
the 70% that work for youfull-time, put them in one
single source of truth so thatyou can interact with them, see
what kind of skill sets theyhave, advertise jobs to them,
advertise internal mobility,advertise new gigs, new
opportunities.
From our perspective, itshouldn't matter what a worker
(06:57):
is looking to do full-time,contract, gig doesn't matter.
If they're the right type ofperson and they're coming to my
brand, I should have an abilityto interact with them and it
should all be in one place.
The biggest challenge thatwe're trying to solve for is the
fact, for decades now, everypart of a large organization has
been separated because of theirtechnology.
(07:17):
I'm in an ATS.
I have a team that sits on topof my ATS.
They're the talent acquisitionteam.
I have an HRIS system or HCMsystem.
I have a team that sits on topof that.
I have a vendor managementsystem.
I have a team that sits on topof that.
They all manage talent.
None of them speak to eachother.
None of those teams worktogether.
That's a system that's broken.
That's a business that's builtteams on top of technology,
(07:40):
versus technology, solving forwhat the business needs to be
able to do and we're trying tofix that.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
That's not a community, though by building a
community you are fixing it.
Okay, so building the community, so I gotcha.
Okay.
So if I plug in Building acommunity on it fixes it.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
That's the point we're trying to get to Right so
I plug into your ATX, I pluginto your HRIS system, I plug
into your VMS.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
You become a single source of truth and you build a
community.
Yeah, because here's the thing.
Talent community is often theterm.
Talent community is often usedfor essentially a list, right,
and that is not a community.
Now if you are advertising to agroup of people, whether that is
non-employee workers or formeremployees or whatever.
(08:25):
That is essentially calledaudience segmentation and that's
still marketing.
So if you're marketing to aspecific audience segment,
that's not a community.
What makes a community is twothings.
Number one durability it'sgotta be something that is
persistent.
Right, it can't be a temporary.
There's no temporary community.
And number two there has to beinteractivity amongst the
(08:49):
community.
So if you're broadcasting tothem, that's advertising and
marketing.
It's them talking to each otherthat makes it a community.
And having a common interestthat lasts beyond a single
status.
So, for example, what I mean bya single status is a job seeker
is not a community, becausethey stop being a job seeker
(09:10):
when they get a job.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So, therefore, what they're now banned from your
community or because they founda job.
So you see what I mean.
Community has to have aninterest that goes beyond a
single status.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
So what's the and I know this is one of those
debates that can go on forever,and I love this conversation.
How do you engage andcommunicate with those in your
community or the new groups thatyou're trying to build?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Perpetitically, you have to be a native.
So in our industry, one of themost, I would say, obvious
examples of a talent communityis SourceCon.
You see people that go to theSourceCon website.
They go to the conference, theyhave conversations, they
respond to blogs, they writeblogs.
That is of type of community.
(09:56):
I wouldn't need to build thatcommunity, I could simply
participate in it, and that as asourcer, and what I teach is
people need to essentiallybecome digital and aviatives or
whatever that community is youcan build.
What you're doing is you'rebuilding a talent community and
you certainly can build thetalent community.
But you can also exist inanother talent community.
(10:18):
So you could do it.
You know you could build onefor yourself, for your
organization and your goals.
You can also participate in onethat already exists.
That's two different techniques.
One of them is, you know, goingnative, parapetitically, and
one of them is building thecommunity with a purpose and a
shared interest of some,hopefully more than one shared
interest, but Right, Right.
(10:40):
So you could do it by, say,building a Facebook group Like
Secret Sourcing Group.
That's a community, SecretSourcing.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Group.
We have examples of that evenwith HRTX.
We've got our virtual event.
We've got companies RPO's at,constantly work with us.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Right, just to get access into the recruiter,
that's the vendors, theparticipants the recruiter.
That's a community.
They have a common interest.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Maybe two different perspectives, but a common
interest A full-time workforce.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
if I'm Pfizer and I have 50,000 full-time workers,
that's a community Right whenyou can get them to engage.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes, of course Not when you broadcast to them.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
No, that's just a channel.
Yeah, and that's where weattempt to play is have those
individuals build a profile,show off their skills, show what
they're interested in, interactwith each other and get matched
to new opportunities.
Our belief is, in the years tocome, a nine to five, monday to
Friday I'm a BA or I'm a Java,but whatever it is, isn't going
(11:36):
to necessarily be the way peopleengage with talent.
Yeah, I think so.
They're going to say, yeah, weneed you to do your job, for
sure, but that might be 30 hours.
The other 10 hours we want youto be a gig worker within the
four walls of our space.
Go, get involved in otherprojects, put your hand up, go
and get into other areas of thebusiness that you wouldn't
otherwise know.
And that does multiple things.
Number one, it builds athriving community.
(11:56):
But number two, it allows aworker to touch and feel
different areas of anorganization that they otherwise
would have been boxed out in.
And if you look at some of thesecall them exit reports or why
people quit their jobs one ofthe main ones is I was.
All I did was my nine to five.
I didn't have any otherinteraction.
I didn't feel valued.
If you're living in Japan.
(12:17):
You can put your hand up andget involved in a project that's
on the other side of the world.
Are you?
Do you feel valued?
Of course you do so.
We believe that that's kind ofthe direction where
organizations are going to go.
And if you combine that withthe talent attraction side so
who do I have today?
Who can I have that's available, that's interested in my brand?
Who have I worked with in thepast?
(12:38):
Who are my alumni?
You put all those things into asingle source of truth.
Now you've got something prettypowerful.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
That's a community.
Yeah, so walking around here onthe conference floor and the
expo floor, really doesn't itstrike you as a lot of these
solutions want to be singleplays.
It's almost like we are thesolution, we do everything for
you, and it seems like reallythat's not to me.
(13:04):
No company just has onesolution.
You were just talking about howyou've got your ATS, you've got
your CRM, you've got your HRA.
So you walk around here.
There's not going to be asingle brand here that does all
of it, but yet they all arepretending to be the one
solution.
So where's the dissonance there?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, it's interesting.
I even look at some of theplatforms I walk by with direct
source contingent labor, veryspecific one area of HR and
talent acquisition, and I see intheir marketing material they
say they're in the direct sourcespace and I've never seen them
in the direct source space.
So, to your point, they'retrying to be everything to
everyone and I think they'redoing themselves.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
They also do diversity, talent, analytics,
reporting, ai and, yeah, all ofthe above and I think that's
where the tight integrations wespoke about this earlier with a
number of people that's wherethe tight integrations come in
the play.
Amongst all of these playersthat are out there, the ATS
doesn't need to be the CRM, CRMdoesn't need to be the source in
(14:04):
mind.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It's okay if you have three softwares, as long as
they talk to each other.
That's the problem, though mostof them don't.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
That's what I'm saying is walk around here.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
They all want to be the solution, but they all don't
want to play in the sameplayground.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
There's some huge companies here that we've worked
with and I'm obviously notgoing to name names but they
don't have APIs.
They just don't have them.
They've got old XML stuff, butit's not interactive, it's not
API first, it's not somethingthat you could actually plug
into and have an enterprisesolution, and yet they're taking
up a city block with a bannerthat says they do everything.
(14:36):
It's kind of a disservice, Ithink, to that's kind of my
point yeah, Yep, agreed, andthey are taking up big city
blocks.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
You know there's their own massive booths.
Yeah, better out of there.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And you know, this is just that.
I'm just going to come out andsay this is a huge criticism,
but there are brands here thathave their own user conferences
and yet they come here.
There are also brands here thathave their own user conferences
and are not here.
Doesn't that speak very highlyof something?
For example, there's a brandthat should be here and isn't,
(15:09):
and to me it sticks out like ared thumb, like a big swollen
red thumb, especially becausethis is an organization that is
in three or four different areasthat are represented here, and
yet they're not here.
Their reasoning for that isbecause, well, we have our own
user conference.
But so does you know.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
I'll point to All of them I saw so Seridian.
They all had the Greenhouse.
Several of them have their ownuser conference.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Greenhouse has one right, so you know.
This other one that I'm talkingabout is not here and it's
almost kind of too obvious.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Who are they.
Well.
They're a company that has anAPI that doesn't work well with
anybody else, all right, I'm notgoing.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
They're probably a partner, so I'm just going to
keep my.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
You see what I'm saying, though that just speaks
loudly about the problem, whichis the lack of compatibility
between these systems, and ifyou're looking to hire the best
partners that you could possiblyget, you definitely might
select three or four differentcompanies, and it would be in
those companies' best intereststo work nicely together in a
community.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
In a community right, A community of technologies how
nice would that be.
A community of?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
technologies that are supporting the same hiring
organization.
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I think it'll be interesting over the next few
years as the market develops, asAI becomes more relevant and
more embedded.
There's firms that are going tobe here, that are going to have
city block booths set up thatdon't even exist yet, that are
going to pop up and do a greatjob at what some of these old
garb have been doing for a longtime and do far better, and are
going to be monsters in no time.
(16:36):
So I think there's going to bea lot of disruption over the few
years to come here.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Do you feel like there's a huge application for
AI in the ETL extract, transformand load space?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
I think there is what .
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I'm seeing with AI.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
That's a huge lift, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Well, the amazing thing about AI these days is
it's doing some pretty hugelifts.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Right, that's what I'm saying so ETL might be
something that, hey, transferwhat we need out of this data
bucket into this other, becausethey don't talk to each other.
Right, there could be a layerin between that talks to both
and becomes the middleware.
Oh my God, that's an old word.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
That you know.
It's like, hey, I'm going totranslate.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I'm going to extract from A translate to B so that B
can use the little, the 10% ofdata it needs from A, making A
and B compatible where theynormally wouldn't be.
To me, that's a naturalextension of what these language
models should be able to do,because they can understand
things like first name, lastname, middle name, nickname and
(17:40):
translate them.
I was working on this hugeproject for a very, very large
financial services company thathad three well, they had a lot
more, but they had three verydisparate systems and the name
of an individual in one systemwas last first and the other one
it was middle initial, lastfirst or last middle initial,
and in the other one it involvedtheir email address, which was
(18:00):
sometimes not the same as lastfirst.
So I had to actually match upfirst, last, middle nickname and
email across three systems justto be able to get one record
from all three, in other words,to query Ryan in three databases
.
I had to transform Ryan intoRyan this, this, ryan Ryan that
this, and you know, manually.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, it's nuts.
I think the short answer isit's gonna help fix those areas.
The problem is you still needto have platforms that have
accessibility to the database.
You still need that.
And that's not necessarily thecase unfortunately, so that's
the missing link.
Well, we'll see.
It's gonna be a change or dietype situation for some of these
(18:48):
platforms in the near future,and there's some big, big
platforms some of them here,some of them not that are gonna
need to make some significantchanges in order to survive.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
So now, you were speaking at the event this year.
What are you talking on?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
A client of ours is coming in and we're talking
about the one doorway approach.
So, you know, put the talentacquisition hat on the ability
for workers to come and choosetheir own adventure.
Right now, everyone talks aboutthis war for talent and then
you go to a career page and it'slike the worst experience
you've ever had.
You know, scrolling throughthese terrible pages and to your
(19:25):
data versus the approach thatwe try to do is a great
experience for workers, wherethey can come in, showcase their
skills and get matched on going.
So I'm interested in full-time,I'm interested in contract, I'm
interested in freelance, I'minterested in all of the above.
Send me everything, build aprofile once, kind of set it and
forget it until I find a newrole or a new gig, but with the
(19:46):
brands that I'm interested in.
That's the generation today.
They want to work for brandsthat they believe in, that
they're passionate about, and ifyou can go and interact with
all of their jobs, not justtheir full-time jobs, that's the
fix we're trying to provide andthat's what we're talking about
tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
So sad story on this topic, not really sad but sad.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
That's the introvert show.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
We were applying to jobs.
Right, we were just testing abunch of stuff.
Apply with your LinkedInprofile, which, okay, click the
button.
Do your thing.
The next step is upload yourresume or enter your experience.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
That's because the LinkedIn profile application
doesn't transfer your experience.
It doesn't make any sense itdoesn't transfer it.
Also, you know what else?
It doesn't provide the emailaddress.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Okay, I can see putting in contact information.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But if you're asking me for my profile, it's there,
right, it's there, like whateverI want you to have is there.
Well, if you think of it from aLinkedIn's perspective, you're
asking to transfer data off oftheir platform.
That is their bread and butter,right?
They don't want to do that.
That's why they lock it down.
I think you can get first name,last name and maybe last title,
maybe your picture.
That's about it.
(20:59):
That's all you're getting fromLinkedIn.
You know they don't want togive away their data.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Ironically, it's not their data.
Oh, I know right, but anyway.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, so it says you.
So it says you.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, no, if it's if you have the right to delete
your information, then yeah, Ifyou don't have the right to
delete information, that's adifferent story.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well, that's a whole different topic.
You know what's going to happenhere with new privacy rules.
We're seeing them pop up in NewYork, california.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
We've been Right to delete, right to delete.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
We've been held to the GDPR high water standard for
well since we our inception,really.
So we've kind of been living inthat world for a while, but in
North America it hasn't reallybeen that large of a thing and
that's changing in a hurry.
So again, you look at some ofthese platforms that don't
necessarily operate in what Iwould call a GDPR compliant way.
They've got some changes comingas well.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, so the ground event.
Has been a pleasure having youon.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Thank, you Appreciate the time.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And hopefully you enjoy the rest of your show you
as well.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Enjoy it.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, folks, thank you.
All right party people.
This is Shali's Deckerlefilling in for Brian Fink.
He's usually the one that'sdoing the openers.
We are live on the floor of theHR Tech Expo Exposition
Exposition.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
All things technology .
Speaker 1 (00:22):
We are guests of the Olio people in their booth
manning their podcast station.
And with us today.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
well, I have Ryan, you do have Ryan, I've been here
all day.
Ryan Leary, I'll be here allday tomorrow, recruiting daily.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And Jonathan.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Prothero, prothero, close enough.
Yeah, not bad Prothero.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Does a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, I've been in HR space since 1998.
Don't hold that against me 1988.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
1988.
98.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
That's two years after I got.
So you know I got two years onit.
Okay, don't hold that againstme.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, Ryan, this is his first week.
Oh well done.
Welcome to the industry.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I wish Sorry to hear that Started recruiting.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So back in the day, on the phone, smalan and Dylan
Started a staff informant in2004.
Live and well, today, big onein Canada.
I'm from Toronto.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We won't hold that against you for sure, thank you.
Thank you, go, leafs.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Stepped away from that organization Part-time in
2013.
Full-time in 2017 to foundTalentnet.
We're a talent acquisitionplatform focused originally in
the contingent labor space, butnow full-time as well, and we
can get into the gory details ofwhat that means and sounds like
Maybe too gory, I think, forthis audience.
Right.
So yeah, this is our secondyear here at HR Tech.
(01:44):
It's been good, good coupledays.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
What's it like on the floor?
Tell us what you've beenexperiencing walking around.
What do you see?
A?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
lot of it's interesting.
The big thing I see this yearmore than anything is equity
people Interesting Growth equity.
I guess there's money out therethat's not been put to work yet
, so we're running into a few ofthose people.
But yeah, it's good.
Tech is moving in the rightdirection.
A little slower than I kind ofthought.
I've sat through some of thepresentations and not as much
(02:12):
discussion about AI and some ofthe disruption as I thought was
going to be here these lastcouple days, but good otherwise.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So now I haven't gotten to sit in any sessions.
I haven't even walked the flooryet.
Have you walked the floor?
I have walked the floor severaltimes.
I have not.
I've been sitting here all daytalking.
What are you seeing?
That's on the floor?
Companies, technology, what'sreally caught your eye?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, the ones that are jumping out, obviously, with
things like chat, gpt andwhat's happening with AI and AI
platforms, how these especiallythe older sort of the big beasts
within HR, how they're startingto incorporate them slowly, but
I think it's going to make bigchanges in the space that we
work in.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I'm afraid it's going to blend everything.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It.
Might, you know, listen from atalent acquisition seat, which
is where I spend all my time.
It's going to make the lives ofpeople looking for resources a
lot easier.
You know we're working onsomething right now in our labs
with GPT.
We work with Google with theirlarge language model, bert, but
also with GPT, and we use 4.0.
The stuff that you can do interms of having a live
(03:25):
conversation with a databasesounds like a weird thing, but
you know you can go in and say,hey, show me the top three Java
developers I have in the LasVegas area and you know real
live conversation have come upand said here they are okay,
well, give me the person who'smost active in the database that
applies the most job spin, giveme somebody that we've spoken
to in the last 30 days.
(03:46):
Just that sort ofconversational discussion.
Yeah, it's remarkable to see youknow, basically, a software,
respond to queries like that andif you're a recruiter, you know
you think about what comesafter that.
So sure I can have this sort ofreal life conversation with an
AI model.
Now, what happens when I canautomate that and say, hey, if
(04:06):
this type of person comes along,apply them to these types of
roles.
That's going to make arecruiter's life completely
different.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Where do you see so, with the inflection of all the
AI, all the tools that we'reseeing out here, solutions out
here this week, where do youthink this is going to come in
and impact HR as a whole?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well, again, the seat that I sit in is talent
acquisition, so finding talent.
If your platforms aren't thesecompanies we're talking to if
their platforms aren't alreadylooking at AI models to help
augment what they're doing, theywill be in the near future.
So I think that's a big onethat's going to affect it
quickly.
We focus in the area ofbuilding talent communities,
(04:50):
branded talent communities forFortune 1000s, and if I'm a
brand like a Meta or an Amazonor a Pfizer and I've got two,
three, four, 500,000 peoplecoming to my career page every
month, having the ability to useAI to keep those people
interacting with my brand,that's going to be a huge
benefit.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
So I got a question.
You mentioned talentcommunities.
That's something Jolly thatwe've been talking about
probably for the last twodecades.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, the concept of talent community has been
misappropriated so manydifferent ways.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, so I'm curious.
So I know what your definition.
I want you to share that witheverybody.
But Jonathan, when you sayyou're building talent
communities, what exactly areyou doing, and where does tech
come into that Sure?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
so, if you think of the space that we live in today
HR and I grew up in contingentright, so I don't the platforms
that are here are notnecessarily the same platforms I
grew up with.
I grew up in that contract roletype world where you're dealing
with vendor management systems,not ATSs.
But, to answer your question,around the space and
(06:01):
specifically where it's startingto change and impact, you know,
we see what your definition oftalent community is changing as
well and I'm curious to hearwhat your definition of a talent
community is.
For us it's any type of worker.
So right now, roughly 30% and aFortune 1000 is non-employee
(06:21):
workforce.
The other 70% are full-timeworkers.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Non-employee workforce.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Non-employee workforce.
So they're Former employees?
No, they're outsourced.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Future employees.
So it's not source counterhouse, sow, g-e-a, whatever it
is Non-direct employees got itCorrect.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
So for us, a talent community, takes that 30% and
the 70% that work for youfull-time, put them in one
single source of truth so thatyou can interact with them, see
what kind of skill sets theyhave, advertise jobs to them,
advertise internal mobility,advertise new gigs, new
opportunities.
From our perspective, itshouldn't matter what a worker
(06:57):
is looking to do full-time,contract, gig doesn't matter.
If they're the right type ofperson and they're coming to my
brand, I should have an abilityto interact with them and it
should all be in one place.
The biggest challenge thatwe're trying to solve for is the
fact, for decades now, everypart of a large organization has
been separated because of theirtechnology.
(07:17):
I'm in an ATS.
I have a team that sits on topof my ATS.
They're the talent acquisitionteam.
I have an HRIS system or HCMsystem.
I have a team that sits on topof that.
I have a vendor managementsystem.
I have a team that sits on topof that.
They all manage talent.
None of them speak to eachother.
None of those teams worktogether.
That's a system that's broken.
That's a business that's builtteams on top of technology,
(07:40):
versus technology, solving forwhat the business needs to be
able to do and we're trying tofix that.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
That's not a community, though by building a
community you are fixing it.
Okay, so building the community, so I gotcha.
Okay.
So if I plug in Building acommunity on it fixes it.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
That's the point we're trying to get to Right so
I plug into your ATX, I pluginto your HRIS system, I plug
into your VMS.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
You become a single source of truth and you build a
community.
Yeah, because here's the thing.
Talent community is often theterm.
Talent community is often usedfor essentially a list, right,
and that is not a community.
Now if you are advertising to agroup of people, whether that is
non-employee workers or formeremployees or whatever.
(08:25):
That is essentially calledaudience segmentation and that's
still marketing.
So if you're marketing to aspecific audience segment,
that's not a community.
What makes a community is twothings.
Number one durability it'sgotta be something that is
persistent.
Right, it can't be a temporary.
There's no temporary community.
And number two there has to beinteractivity amongst the
(08:49):
community.
So if you're broadcasting tothem, that's advertising and
marketing.
It's them talking to each otherthat makes it a community.
And having a common interestthat lasts beyond a single
status.
So, for example, what I mean bya single status is a job seeker
is not a community, becausethey stop being a job seeker
(09:10):
when they get a job.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So, therefore, what they're now banned from your
community or because they founda job.
So you see what I mean.
Community has to have aninterest that goes beyond a
single status.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
So what's the and I know this is one of those
debates that can go on forever,and I love this conversation.
How do you engage andcommunicate with those in your
community or the new groups thatyou're trying to build?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Perpetitically, you have to be a native.
So in our industry, one of themost, I would say, obvious
examples of a talent communityis SourceCon.
You see people that go to theSourceCon website.
They go to the conference, theyhave conversations, they
respond to blogs, they writeblogs.
That is of type of community.
(09:56):
I wouldn't need to build thatcommunity, I could simply
participate in it, and that as asourcer, and what I teach is
people need to essentiallybecome digital and aviatives or
whatever that community is youcan build.
What you're doing is you'rebuilding a talent community and
you certainly can build thetalent community.
But you can also exist inanother talent community.
(10:18):
So you could do it.
You know you could build onefor yourself, for your
organization and your goals.
You can also participate in onethat already exists.
That's two different techniques.
One of them is, you know, goingnative, parapetitically, and
one of them is building thecommunity with a purpose and a
shared interest of some,hopefully more than one shared
interest, but Right, Right.
(10:40):
So you could do it by, say,building a Facebook group Like
Secret Sourcing Group.
That's a community, SecretSourcing.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Group.
We have examples of that evenwith HRTX.
We've got our virtual event.
We've got companies RPO's at,constantly work with us.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Right, just to get access into the recruiter,
that's the vendors, theparticipants the recruiter.
That's a community.
They have a common interest.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Maybe two different perspectives, but a common
interest A full-time workforce.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
if I'm Pfizer and I have 50,000 full-time workers,
that's a community Right whenyou can get them to engage.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes, of course Not when you broadcast to them.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
No, that's just a channel.
Yeah, and that's where weattempt to play is have those
individuals build a profile,show off their skills, show what
they're interested in, interactwith each other and get matched
to new opportunities.
Our belief is, in the years tocome, a nine to five, monday to
Friday I'm a BA or I'm a Java,but whatever it is, isn't going
(11:36):
to necessarily be the way peopleengage with talent.
Yeah, I think so.
They're going to say, yeah, weneed you to do your job, for
sure, but that might be 30 hours.
The other 10 hours we want youto be a gig worker within the
four walls of our space.
Go, get involved in otherprojects, put your hand up, go
and get into other areas of thebusiness that you wouldn't
otherwise know.
And that does multiple things.
Number one, it builds athriving community.
(11:56):
But number two, it allows aworker to touch and feel
different areas of anorganization that they otherwise
would have been boxed out in.
And if you look at some of thesecall them exit reports or why
people quit their jobs one ofthe main ones is I was.
All I did was my nine to five.
I didn't have any otherinteraction.
I didn't feel valued.
If you're living in Japan.
(12:17):
You can put your hand up andget involved in a project that's
on the other side of the world.
Are you?
Do you feel valued?
Of course you do so.
We believe that that's kind ofthe direction where
organizations are going to go.
And if you combine that withthe talent attraction side so
who do I have today?
Who can I have that's available, that's interested in my brand?
Who have I worked with in thepast?
(12:38):
Who are my alumni?
You put all those things into asingle source of truth.
Now you've got something prettypowerful.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
That's a community.
Yeah, so walking around here onthe conference floor and the
expo floor, really doesn't itstrike you as a lot of these
solutions want to be singleplays.
It's almost like we are thesolution, we do everything for
you, and it seems like reallythat's not to me.
(13:04):
No company just has onesolution.
You were just talking about howyou've got your ATS, you've got
your CRM, you've got your HRA.
So you walk around here.
There's not going to be asingle brand here that does all
of it, but yet they all arepretending to be the one
solution.
So where's the dissonance there?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, it's interesting.
I even look at some of theplatforms I walk by with direct
source contingent labor, veryspecific one area of HR and
talent acquisition, and I see intheir marketing material they
say they're in the direct sourcespace and I've never seen them
in the direct source space.
So, to your point, they'retrying to be everything to
everyone and I think they'redoing themselves.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
They also do diversity, talent, analytics,
reporting, ai and, yeah, all ofthe above and I think that's
where the tight integrations wespoke about this earlier with a
number of people that's wherethe tight integrations come in
the play.
Amongst all of these playersthat are out there, the ATS
doesn't need to be the CRM, CRMdoesn't need to be the source in
(14:04):
mind.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It's okay if you have three softwares, as long as
they talk to each other.
That's the problem, though mostof them don't.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
That's what I'm saying is walk around here.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
They all want to be the solution, but they all don't
want to play in the sameplayground.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
There's some huge companies here that we've worked
with and I'm obviously notgoing to name names but they
don't have APIs.
They just don't have them.
They've got old XML stuff, butit's not interactive, it's not
API first, it's not somethingthat you could actually plug
into and have an enterprisesolution, and yet they're taking
up a city block with a bannerthat says they do everything.
(14:36):
It's kind of a disservice, Ithink, to that's kind of my
point yeah, Yep, agreed, andthey are taking up big city
blocks.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
You know there's their own massive booths.
Yeah, better out of there.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And you know, this is just that.
I'm just going to come out andsay this is a huge criticism,
but there are brands here thathave their own user conferences
and yet they come here.
There are also brands here thathave their own user conferences
and are not here.
Doesn't that speak very highlyof something?
For example, there's a brandthat should be here and isn't,
(15:09):
and to me it sticks out like ared thumb, like a big swollen
red thumb, especially becausethis is an organization that is
in three or four different areasthat are represented here, and
yet they're not here.
Their reasoning for that isbecause, well, we have our own
user conference.
But so does you know.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
I'll point to All of them I saw so Seridian.
They all had the Greenhouse.
Several of them have their ownuser conference.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Greenhouse has one right, so you know.
This other one that I'm talkingabout is not here and it's
almost kind of too obvious.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Who are they.
Well.
They're a company that has anAPI that doesn't work well with
anybody else, all right, I'm notgoing.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
They're probably a partner, so I'm just going to
keep my.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
You see what I'm saying, though that just speaks
loudly about the problem, whichis the lack of compatibility
between these systems, and ifyou're looking to hire the best
partners that you could possiblyget, you definitely might
select three or four differentcompanies, and it would be in
those companies' best intereststo work nicely together in a
community.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
In a community right, A community of technologies how
nice would that be.
A community of?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
technologies that are supporting the same hiring
organization.
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I think it'll be interesting over the next few
years as the market develops, asAI becomes more relevant and
more embedded.
There's firms that are going tobe here, that are going to have
city block booths set up thatdon't even exist yet, that are
going to pop up and do a greatjob at what some of these old
garb have been doing for a longtime and do far better, and are
going to be monsters in no time.
(16:36):
So I think there's going to bea lot of disruption over the few
years to come here.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Do you feel like there's a huge application for
AI in the ETL extract, transformand load space?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
I think there is what .
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I'm seeing with AI.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
That's a huge lift, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Well, the amazing thing about AI these days is
it's doing some pretty hugelifts.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Right, that's what I'm saying so ETL might be
something that, hey, transferwhat we need out of this data
bucket into this other, becausethey don't talk to each other.
Right, there could be a layerin between that talks to both
and becomes the middleware.
Oh my God, that's an old word.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
That you know.
It's like, hey, I'm going totranslate.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I'm going to extract from A translate to B so that B
can use the little, the 10% ofdata it needs from A, making A
and B compatible where theynormally wouldn't be.
To me, that's a naturalextension of what these language
models should be able to do,because they can understand
things like first name, lastname, middle name, nickname and
(17:40):
translate them.
I was working on this hugeproject for a very, very large
financial services company thathad three well, they had a lot
more, but they had three verydisparate systems and the name
of an individual in one systemwas last first and the other one
it was middle initial, lastfirst or last middle initial,
and in the other one it involvedtheir email address, which was
(18:00):
sometimes not the same as lastfirst.
So I had to actually match upfirst, last, middle nickname and
email across three systems justto be able to get one record
from all three, in other words,to query Ryan in three databases
.
I had to transform Ryan intoRyan this, this, ryan Ryan that
this, and you know, manually.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah, it's nuts.
I think the short answer isit's gonna help fix those areas.
The problem is you still needto have platforms that have
accessibility to the database.
You still need that.
And that's not necessarily thecase unfortunately, so that's
the missing link.
Well, we'll see.
It's gonna be a change or dietype situation for some of these
(18:48):
platforms in the near future,and there's some big, big
platforms some of them here,some of them not that are gonna
need to make some significantchanges in order to survive.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
So now, you were speaking at the event this year.
What are you talking on?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
A client of ours is coming in and we're talking
about the one doorway approach.
So, you know, put the talentacquisition hat on the ability
for workers to come and choosetheir own adventure.
Right now, everyone talks aboutthis war for talent and then
you go to a career page and it'slike the worst experience
you've ever had.
You know, scrolling throughthese terrible pages and to your
(19:25):
data versus the approach thatwe try to do is a great
experience for workers, wherethey can come in, showcase their
skills and get matched on going.
So I'm interested in full-time,I'm interested in contract, I'm
interested in freelance, I'minterested in all of the above.
Send me everything, build aprofile once, kind of set it and
forget it until I find a newrole or a new gig, but with the
(19:46):
brands that I'm interested in.
That's the generation today.
They want to work for brandsthat they believe in, that
they're passionate about, and ifyou can go and interact with
all of their jobs, not justtheir full-time jobs, that's the
fix we're trying to provide andthat's what we're talking about
tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
So sad story on this topic, not really sad but sad.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
That's the introvert show.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
We were applying to jobs.
Right, we were just testing abunch of stuff.
Apply with your LinkedInprofile, which, okay, click the
button.
Do your thing.
The next step is upload yourresume or enter your experience.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
That's because the LinkedIn profile application
doesn't transfer your experience.
It doesn't make any sense itdoesn't transfer it.
Also, you know what else?
It doesn't provide the emailaddress.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Okay, I can see putting in contact information.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But if you're asking me for my profile, it's there,
right, it's there, like whateverI want you to have is there.
Well, if you think of it from aLinkedIn's perspective, you're
asking to transfer data off oftheir platform.
That is their bread and butter,right?
They don't want to do that.
That's why they lock it down.
I think you can get first name,last name and maybe last title,
maybe your picture.
That's about it.
(20:59):
That's all you're getting fromLinkedIn.
You know they don't want togive away their data.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Ironically, it's not their data.
Oh, I know right, but anyway.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, so it says you.
So it says you.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, no, if it's if you have the right to delete
your information, then yeah, Ifyou don't have the right to
delete information, that's adifferent story.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well, that's a whole different topic.
You know what's going to happenhere with new privacy rules.
We're seeing them pop up in NewYork, california.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
We've been Right to delete, right to delete.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
We've been held to the GDPR high water standard for
well since we our inception,really.
So we've kind of been living inthat world for a while, but in
North America it hasn't reallybeen that large of a thing and
that's changing in a hurry.
So again, you look at some ofthese platforms that don't
necessarily operate in what Iwould call a GDPR compliant way.
They've got some changes comingas well.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, so the ground event.
Has been a pleasure having youon.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Thank, you Appreciate the time.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And hopefully you enjoy the rest of your show you
as well.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Enjoy it.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, folks, thank you.
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