December 14, 2023 • 29 mins
Have you ever wondered why people end up in jobs that are 100 percent not the right fit for them? Scott Morris, founder of PropulsionAI, has the answer to this conundrum! With his extensive experience in HR, Scott realized that many tools in the HR industry were built by engineers, not practitioners. This led him to found PropulsionAI, a company focused on creating a solution centered around what HR people and leaders actually need to get their work done.
Scott shares his journey and insights on why it is crucial for leaders to change their mindset when it comes to hiring. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on the fit for a role rather than just the tasks that need to be done. Scott introduces PropulsionAI's product: Spark, an AI-powered conversational platform that acts as a digital HR partner. This interactive tool guides users in scoping job roles, creating job postings, and writing job descriptions that attract the right candidates while deterring the wrong ones.
Scott and William also tackle the challenge of reconciling differences between recruiters and hiring managers when it comes to fitability. They discuss how Spark facilitates collaboration and aligns expectations by involving the hiring manager in the process of crafting job descriptions. Additionally, Scott highlights Propulsion AI's unique solution of value added scales, which allow users to balance different dimensions of a role's requirements, ensuring a more accurate representation of the position.
If you're tired of hiring mismatches and want to attract remarkable candidates, make sure to tune in and check out how much of a game changer Propulsion AI is.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
William Tincup (00:25):
This is William Tincup, and you're listening to
the Use Case Podcast.
Today we have Scott Owen fromPropulsion AI, and we'll be
learning about the businesscase, the cost benefit analysis,
or the use case for whycustomers pick Propulsion AI.
Scott, would you do us a favorand introduce yourself and
Propulsion AI?
Scott Morriss (00:43):
Absolutely, William.
And first of all, thanks forhaving me on.
I'm happy to be here with you.
So I have, I have about 20 yearsworth of experience across
almost every discipline of HR.
I've been a chief HR officer,chief people officer for
organizations as large as 15,000.
And as small as 150.
And believe me, in the smallerorganizations, I've been a hands
(01:06):
on leader.
Right.
And, um, and, and dug in deep,elbow deep, shoulder deep, I
think in a lot of cases to everysingle discipline of HR, whether
that's compensation and actuallydoing frontline comp analysis,
or whether it's recruiting atthe executive level or
recruiting at the technicallevel.
Um, learning and development iswhere I started and, and
(01:27):
obviously steering the function.
Uh, and after 20 years, youknow, I realized that a lot of
the tools that I was strugglingwith.
We're built by really smartengineers, but they weren't
built by practitioners.
William Tincup (01:40):
I like how you said really smart engineers,
rather than just sayingengineers.
Scott Morriss (01:46):
I'm careful with that because as a founder, I'm
learning about how hard it is tobuild intelligent apps.
Good point.
And I don't want to be overlycritical, but there are so many
apps that they work for the ITfolks.
Right.
Don't work for the HR folks.
And it's silly.
And it causes these struggles.
And, and in a lot of cases, Ithink, honestly, if you ask the
(02:08):
HR people what they needed, theywould tell you the things that
their managers and that theiremployees needed.
Right.
And, and it doesn't feel likeanybody listened to that.
So I said, you know what, I'mnot doing this anymore.
I quit my job and I founded acompany and we are committed to
building company.
That is, you know, centeredaround what HR people and
(02:28):
leaders need in order to get thework done that they're doing.
And that's, that's the genesisof Propulsion AI.
William Tincup (02:33):
And so where do we, uh, first of all, I love the
story and I love HR leaders,recruiting leaders that kind of
come out and then go, if theyfind a problem and then they
basically say, there's got to bea better way and they can't find
it on the open market.
And then they say, you knowwhat, I'll just build it.
I'll build it myself.
And uh, so I, first of all, Ilove those origin stories.
(02:54):
Um, where did you start?
So what was the, where was thekind of the first impetus or
where you were thinking that youknew, okay, we got to change
this.
This is not just, it's not beingdone well.
Let's go fix this.
Scott Morriss (03:07):
So, so, so I like how you framed that, William,
because there is a foothold thatwe're working on right now.
Right.
But it is just the tip of theiceberg to what we think the
larger problem is.
And the larger problem is justsimply this.
Every year in the United Statesalone, tens of millions of
people go to work in jobs wherethey are just not a fit.
Right.
(03:27):
And that doesn't mean that,like, they're bad employees.
There are, I mean, I, I've beenaround a bunch of people that I
thought were great employees,and they were not a fit for the
company or for the role becausesomebody hadn't taken the time
or been thoughtful enough toreally figure that out.
And unfortunately, individualsdon't have much opportunity to
interview companies and figureout that, that fit for
(03:49):
themselves.
So the problem that we're reallyfocused on.
And it's a 1.
1 trillion problem in the UnitedStates alone.
It's a 7.
8 trillion problem worldwide.
That lack of fit, which is notthe same as fitting in.
And a guy named Andre Martinjust wrote a great book called
Wrong Fit, Right Fit.
(04:09):
And that, that's the focus of,of the book.
And Andre and I have talkedabout this a couple of different
times.
Fitting in is.
You know, it doesn't feel great,but a lack of fit is a lot
deeper than just that sentiment.
And so that's the problem thatwe're, that we're focused on
solving.
William Tincup (04:28):
And do we fix it?
And do we fix fit all the wayfrom recruiting, uh, through
promoting through succession?
If we actually do successionplanning, et cetera, like where
do we, where's the start andstop or lines of demarcation, or
where do you want to focus
Scott Morriss (04:44):
fit?
Well, I, I think the easiestplace, and especially for us,
because it's what we're workingon right now to release, is the
very beginning.
You know, it's critical for a,for a leader.
If you're a leader working in anorganization, here's what you
know, without a doubt, you'vegot fires that are burning.
You've got people that arecoming into your office and
(05:06):
saying, this is not done.
And you have got to hire, andyou've got to hire quickly.
And the longer it takes you tohire, the more opportunity you
have to miss.
Top candidates.
And the reality is that, youknow, sitting down and scoping a
role takes time.
And on the other side of that,you know, it's, it's critical
(05:26):
that you think through thingsand not only for the bottom
line, although the bottom lineis the easiest place to touch
this, but you want to talk aboutcandidate.
Experience.
If you want to talk aboutemployee engagement, like, you
know, the employee engagementsurvey market is projected by, I
think the end of, of 26 to belike 326 million, William, but
(05:47):
you know what?
You can't have employeeengagement.
If you haven't taken the thoughtbefore you even post or haven't
taken the time before you postedthe role to think through how
that job is going to fit intoyour company strategy.
To figure out what the return onthat job is, right, if you
haven't taken the time to dothat, you are not setting
yourself up for either a goodcandidate experience or for
(06:08):
employee engagement.
So, I think leaders right nowtoday, they're focused on the
symptoms, they're not focused onthe root cause.
And for us, the root cause is,can you sit down and balance
these two things?
You've got to fill the rolequickly and you've got to take
the time to think through howthe, the, the particular job
fits the organizationalstrategy.
William Tincup (06:28):
You know, I love this on so many levels, but, you
know, the thing about kind of,uh, employer brand, because I
know you've studied this stuffas well, is I've always said
that employer brand has torepulse as much as it retracts,
uh, attracts, right?
So, So if we're, if we'retalking about fit, like, as you
said, some, some, sometimes youjust don't fit that manager or
(06:51):
that job, or maybe you've grownout of it and you don't fit it
any longer, or, uh, on the frontend, as you've described, you
know, hiring managers have anidea of what they think will
fit, uh, and candidates have anidea of what they think they fit
and those two don't really syncin any way, shape or form.
So how do you.
How do you get everybody on thesame page around fitability?
(07:14):
So candidates, recruiters,hiring managers, HR, like you
got a different, you got likesix different contingencies here
and they all probably look atfit a little bit differently.
Scott Morriss (07:26):
You know, the, the easiest way to do it, it's
the obvious way to do it, butit's not the way that a lot of
organizations are going to doit.
And that is have a great HRbusiness partner or great senior
recruiter experienced enough topush back on you as a senior
manager, especially, and drivethe conversation and the
thinking into some of theseother areas and get beyond like,
(07:46):
what are the tasks that I wantthis person to do?
And the reason, likeorganizations do that, right?
But that doesn't scale.
That model doesn't scale.
And, and I think we're in an eranow, especially with what's
happening with artificialintelligence and the subset of
AI called machine learning, thatwe can create, we can, we can
(08:07):
take a different approach and wecan scale a whole lot easier,
but the simple answer to yourquestion is we got to get
leaders to change their mindset.
about what's really important,and it starts with, I think, a
simple question.
Do you want people, are yougoing to hire somebody who's
going to do tasks, or are yougoing to hire somebody who's
going to be an owner?
And listen, we could be talkingabout, like, a person that
(08:28):
stands at the, at the counter atChipotle.
You still want them to own apiece of that, that
organization, of theinteractions that they have with
their customer.
But if you start thinking about,like, your job is to punch
buttons on a cash register,that's a, that, you're, you're
dead from the very beginning.
Right.
Right.
William Tincup (08:44):
And so No, go
Scott Morriss (08:46):
ahead.
Go ahead.
Well, so, so, so, but, buthaving an unscalable model, like
we'll just add more HR businesspartners.
We'll just add more recruiters.
That's not working either.
And you know what?
I don't think the recruiterswant that because that's not the
work the recruiter wants to do.
The recruiter wants to work withcandidates and wants to apply
their unique expertise that weneed because it's something
humans do best to really sussingout, is that the right person
(09:08):
for us?
Are they going to fit us indifferent ways and can I reveal
to them?
The fit that we could have forthem.
So I forgot
William Tincup (09:15):
to ask you, and uh, I should, I, I would be
remiss if we get through thewhole podcast and I didn't ask
you about propulsion, like whatdo you, what does the technology
or what does the company
Scott Morriss (09:25):
do?
Well, so here's what we'vecreated.
We've, we have, uh, designed aconversational.
AI product, which is likeworking.
It's like having a seniorrecruiter or an HR business
partner at your side when andwhere you want.
It is an interactive product,which means that this isn't,
(09:47):
this isn't a form filler.
If you look at the market todayand, and particularly for, you
know, tools and platforms thatcreate job descriptions, you're,
you're basically looking at formfillers.
And if it's not a form filler,it's usually somebody that's
tried to tack on some form ofwhat they're calling AI to an
(10:11):
existing product and, and, andsort of hide their, their tech
debt, you know, which isbasically a form filler.
What we've built is an AI firstproduct, which is interactive.
This product engages the user ina conversation.
It's called Spark, the smartplatform for attracting
remarkable candidates.
S P A R C.
It's guided by a digital human,and we've named her Athena.
(10:35):
And what Athena does isbasically interviews you and,
and challenges in some cases,choices that the user wants to
make.
The user's always in command,always responsible for the final
decision.
But what Athena is doing is whata senior HR business partner or
senior recruiter is going to do.
She's also adaptive.
She learns the organization.
(10:56):
Each time you come through tosit down and scope a job, she's
learning about the organization,not only about what you want in
roles, but about the tone andvoice that you use.
In fact, she's consuming thosefrom what you've got already
published on your website, yourcorporate career site, your
Glassdoor page, and other piecesof information that are out on
(11:17):
the web.
And then she takes thatunderstanding that she builds
out of the conversation she'shaving with the user, and she
writes the job posting, shewrites the job description, and
she writes SEO optimized socialmedia posts.
And William, I think I would beremiss if I didn't make the
point quickly for the audiencethat the job description is not
(11:40):
the job posting.
They have different purposes anddifferent functions in so many
organizations.
And it's back to the speedargument, right?
They're erring on the side of,I've got to get this done
quickly.
So they either cut and paste, orthey write something that
they're going to call a jobdescription and they put it on
the web.
And that's just, it's, it'swrong headed.
But it's done for speed.
(12:00):
And what Athena does is she getsin the middle of that and says,
Look, you can have both ofthese.
You don't have to pick one orthe other.
We'll have a conversation.
And by the way, thatconversation, for most
organizations, this process thatI'm talking about takes days in
the best cases and months in theworst cases.
And she turns this activity intosomething you fit into a coffee
(12:21):
break.
And so she conducts thisinterview, leverages that
information, writes the jobposting, which is a marketing
document.
And going back to what you said,and I think you're spot on, it
is designed to attract in theright people and scare the heck
out of the wrong ones so thatyou don't go blind reading
resumes.
She also writes the jobdescription, which has an
audience of exactly one person,and it's the person in that job.
(12:45):
And its purpose is to take theambiguity out of how we are
agreeing.
That the one, the results thatshould get accomplished and two,
how the job should have done.
And she writes all of that foryou.
And then she stores everythingin a library.
And so it's integrated, flowsinto your HR tech stack, flows
(13:06):
to job boards with a singleclick, flows to social media, if
you've connected your accountsand becomes a place where
individuals can collaboratearound this question of what is
this job?
How does it fit the strategy?
And, and how are we going tomeasure its success?
So.
William Tincup (13:22):
Uh, an age old problem that you deal with, uh,
as a, as a former practitioneris how do you, how do you
reconcile the differencesbetween kind of the sourcer, uh,
uh, the recruiter and the hiringmanager?
So we'll just deal with therecruiter and hiring manager.
And so Athena can interview,okay, that's great, but if, if
she's interviewing two people,she's going to potentially, uh,
(13:45):
get two different responses.
How does that get reconciled interms of what actually are we
going to go with?
Scott Morriss (13:53):
So, let me be clear about functionality.
Our, our sort of view of theworld is the hiring manager is
simultaneously the best personto have involved and the
absolute worst.
They are the best person becausethey know the work, right?
And I know, I look, I know as arecruiter, when I've functioned
(14:13):
at either as an executiverecruiter or as a frontline
recruiter.
When I've come in, I am a secondbest solution.
That hiring manager knows thework.
They know the profile.
What they're not good at isgetting all of that out.
What I'm not good at is knowingthe work and I may know how to
get it out.
And that's where Athena comes inbecause Athena creates this with
(14:35):
the hiring manager.
And then that hiring manager cansend it to the sourcer, can send
it to the recruiter, can send itto their team.
And say, what do you think aboutthis?
Yeah, this is
William Tincup (14:45):
the
Scott Morriss (14:45):
job.
That's right.
And what you're really saying isnot just like, here are the
tasks, but here is like, this isan investment.
Salary is an investment.
And we have to be concernedabout what the return is.
So it's like, here are the jobresponsibilities.
And by the way, there aremultiple, we, the way that
Athena writes these, she iswriting them in such a way that
you could fit a whole host oftactics.
(15:08):
Under each one without losingthe heart of what the
responsibility is.
And this is something that mosthiring managers don't do well.
They go down to a tactic, whichcan only be done one way.
Right, right, right.
Athena writes very openly to theheart of what you're trying to
get as an outcome.
William Tincup (15:26):
Oh, I love this.
I love this one.
So many levels.
Let me ask you some by, by sidequestion, if you don't mind.
When you, uh, get to show, uh,Propulsion AI to a prospect for
the first time, what do theyfall in
Scott Morriss (15:38):
love with?
Okay, can I, let me tell you my,my absolute favorite comment
that I've gotten back fromsomeone and then I'll answer
your question directly.
Sure.
So I, I did a demo recently, um,for an individual who's
accountable to, for buying allHR technology for the
organization.
And I got to the end of thedemo, he's got a big smile on
(15:58):
his face and I said like, what Ilike, what kind of egg do I have
on me?
Like, what have I done to screwthis up?
And he goes, I just bought aproduct from, and it was a.
I can't even call them acompetitor because I just don't,
I think they're so old and, andthe focus is just different for
them.
But he said, I just bought thiscompetitor's product.
And he said, I feel like.
(16:19):
I bought a horse and you justshowed me a car and we're
working really hard to unwindthat deal and try and get them
to come in and, and, and testdrive, um, with their work
population, um, spark.
But you know, I think peoplereact, um, there's, there's a
huge feature that gets a lot ofattention and we call it value
(16:40):
added scales.
And it came out of, out of sortof this logic that, I mean,
personally, and I'm sure you'vehad a similar experience, I've
operated, I've been a part oftwo different organizations.
And in each of theseorganizations, I had the exact
same title and I had a verysimilar job description.
(17:00):
Like indistinguishably similar.
And yet in organization one, theneed was for me to perform the
job in a way that was veryconnected to building vision and
building a team and looking downthe road and those kinds of
things.
And in organization number two,I needed to be very execution
focused and very now focused.
(17:22):
And yet the job description forthose two was indistinguishable.
So we said, look, it can't justbe.
The, the job responsibilities,every chief people officer is
accountable to build a healthyculture.
How you do that matters.
And so we created this featurecalled Value Added Scales.
There are 12 of them.
They have between seven andeight dimensions in each.
(17:44):
And what we're asking the userto do is to balance across these
dimensions.
Where does this aspect like biasfor action or strategy versus
execution?
or the way that you organizetasks or, you know, any
dimension that you can think ofwithin and we're hard pressed to
find a job that doesn't fit intothese 12.
(18:04):
Right.
Um, and, and by, by, byadjusting these dimensions, you
effectively create a profilethat says to your applicants,
it's not just And I'll usemyself as an example.
It's, it's not just a chiefpeople officer job.
It is a chief people officer jobthat needs to be done like this.
(18:25):
And that is key to getting theright people to go, Oh, I'm
built like that.
And I love to deliver value likethat.
And the wrong people, even ifthey are top performers to look
at that and go, I think I needto
William Tincup (18:37):
think carefully.
Right.
Which is the whole idea.
Someone can see themselves inthat job and thriving or they
see themselves not in that job.
Which is, both are important.
Both are absolutely important.
Um, I forgot to ask you in termsof market.
Is there any particularindustries or markets or size of
(18:59):
companies or anything like thatthat Propulsion AI is focused on
these days?
Scott Morriss (19:04):
You know, we're, we are a young company.
We are, um, focused as, as suchon a more narrow, um, segment of
the market, but, but that'sbecause that's where we need to
focus.
Right.
These are human problems.
Yeah.
Good point.
And we think that these problemstranscend industry.
There are some cases wherethey're obviously, you know,
they either by virtue of you area more distributed organization,
(19:27):
you need to balance control at acouple of different levels while
maintaining consistency in youremployment brand.
Or in the voice that you use andthose kinds of things, or you're
doing an inordinate amount ofhiring, like, like tech
companies, um, do during, duringcertain periods.
Um, so we think, we think thereare certain organizations that
are going to grab on faster thanothers, but they're human
(19:48):
problems.
They're not, they're notlimited.
William Tincup (19:51):
Yeah.
And I think it's important for astartup to do that.
Uh, I've seen a lot of startupsfail where they try to be all
things to all people, which isgreat, of course, but it's, it's
like, you know what, let's justgo solve this problem with law
firms and, uh, go, go do thatand let's just solve it there.
And then once we do that, wefeel pretty comfortable.
(20:11):
They then let's go solve it foranother area or whatever.
So enterprise is the same way.
It's like, well, you know what,we're going to go do large cap
or even small cap firms, andthis is what we're going to
focus on.
And all of a sudden theircustomers start pulling them
prospects are pulling them upmarket.
So I think it's, I think it'sgood, especially as a startup.
I think it's really great tohave a focus ultimately.
(20:34):
Your customers are going to tellyou where,
Scott Morriss (20:36):
if we,
William Tincup (20:38):
if we listen, you know, at one point the
customers say, let me see overhere.
Okay, great.
Um, the next question I have is,is if someone's not bought
something like this, so go backto your practitioner days.
If you've never bought somethinglike this, the guidance that you
give practitioners that arethinking about buying Propulsion
HR, like what would you script?
(21:00):
Here's the questions you shouldbe
Scott Morriss (21:01):
asking us.
Uh, let me start with this.
We're trying to make it supereasy for any, anybody can have
marketing speak and everycompany wants to still do
everything.
William Tincup (21:14):
It's funny that you said that because I just
came back from HR tech a coupleof weeks ago and it's like, you
talk about marketing speak, youwalk through the expo hall and
there's 500 vendors and it'svery hard not to like get things
confused.
So I could, and that, and, andI've been studying this stuff
for a long time, so it's like,it's okay.
So like I get it.
(21:35):
But for a practitioner to walkthrough that thing, I can't
imagine them being able todiscern what's reality like Hmm.
That actually exists and that'sreal, or Yeah.
You know, something that'smarketing speak.
So I, that, that
Scott Morriss (21:49):
resonates and, and I'm sure, I'm sure when you
walked through that hall youwere like, oh my God, this group
is the best.
And that group is the best.
That group is the Oh, right.
Everybody's the best.
It's
William Tincup (21:57):
hundred percent.
100 percent from boof to boof,you're like, Oh my God, this is
the most amazing thing.
Next thing, Oh my God, this isthe most amazing.
Yeah, I can see that also.
Being a problem for practice
Scott Morriss (22:08):
shoes.
So, so we're not, we, we decidedearly on, we're not going to
play that game, right?
We're not, I don't, I'm notgoing to tell you how great the
company is, but I'm going tomake it really easy and really
simple for you to figure thatout for yourself.
And that starts with.
You know, this is a cloud basedproduct that is zero install,
(22:29):
zero maintenance.
You can turn it on, turn it off.
You want to get in and, and, andwe do a seven day free trial.
So you can come in and there areno limits on it.
There is no, I mean, we, youknow, the only thing we need is
to just validate your account,right?
But beyond that, we don't putany limits on what you can
create.
We don't limit any of thefeatures for you.
Go use the whole thing becausewe are so convinced that when
(22:52):
you use it once, you are goingto want to use it writ large.
The, the solution scales, so itis cloud based.
It's got nothing to, to install.
You can go from a few users tothe entire enterprise with
integrations with very little,very little problem.
(23:12):
There's no PII to what we'vecreated.
So that isn't a concern.
I think, you know, peoplelegitimately right now, I think
people should be thinking deeplyabout AI and bias.
And, you know, what we've, whatwe've created, um, there are
products on the market that willscan for biased language.
(23:36):
We use 26 differentcharacteristics to evaluate what
gets created and, um, editlanguage, suggest edits to you
around biased language becauseour goal is, is to have these
things attract in the rightindividuals and the right
individuals should be attracted.
Not the language shouldn't getin the way what they should be
(23:57):
attracted by is like I wantthose challenges and we don't
want anything to get in the wayof that.
But I think that's a legitimatequestion that buyers should be
asking is what have you donearound bias and and and how
deeply are you thinking aboutthat, and I think they should
ask questions about like what'smy, what's my commitment and how
hard is it to.
To, you know, put in, um, andwhat kind of support do I get?
(24:20):
And, and actually what we'vetried to build here, because
when we do it, you and I knowbecause we're in the business,
but it's not just the act oflike going and working with a
hiring manager to createsomething.
You're going and working withthat hiring manager and you're,
you're creating, but you'retrying to teach them along the
way.
And we've built a teaching tool.
This is, this is not just acontent creator.
(24:40):
It's not just a digital humanthat is working with you like a
human.
It is a, it's a teacher.
I love this.
William Tincup (24:48):
Okay.
Last question.
And I think you touched on itjust a little bit earlier, but
we were talking about workflowand you were talking about
connecting to your, uh, techstack and things like that.
So I'm assuming that this istied into maybe the CRM or the
ATS, but I don't want to assumetoo much.
Where, where would people, whenthey're listening to this, where
(25:08):
would they think about, uh,Propulsion AI being in their
workflow?
Scott Morriss (25:14):
So I think at the very beginning, and let me, let
me tell you, I'll paint what Ithink is a very common story for
people to show you where wethink this product fits in the
world of today.
Like if I, if I report to you,William, and I need to hire,
right, I got a bunch of firesand I'm like, Oh my God, I've
like, I got to get, I got to getpeople in here because my team
(25:35):
is going crazy.
So I come to you and I comeempty handed.
And I say to you, William, I'vegot to hire.
And you say to me, what's thejob do?
And I'm like, oh, God,
William Tincup (25:47):
and how many do you need?
Scott Morriss (25:49):
Right.
And what's it going to cost me?
Right.
And maybe I get past you, but ifI get past you, it's because you
and I have a relationship oftrust and I've proven myself to
be worthy of your trust.
Right.
And yada, yada, right?
But now I've got to go on and Ihave to get budget for this
because maybe we don't havebudget.
So I'm going to have to get pastthe CFO if I'm in a smaller
(26:09):
organization or my financeleader or someone, right?
The business unit leader who'sthinking about all of the varied
choices that they have to makewith money.
And so I'm going to go to thatperson empty handed too.
In the world of, and the reason,by the way, that I go empty
handed is If you're going totell me no, why do I want to
sink a bunch of effort intoanything and then just get told
(26:30):
no, right?
I'll sort it out later becomesthe mentality.
What we think is that this sparkgets utilized at the very
beginning of the journey becauseagain, we've made it so easy to
interact with and so fast.
So rather than coming to you, Igo to Athena.
She and I have a conversation.
She helps me scope the role.
(26:51):
It ends up with a jobdescription in my hand and I
come to you and I say, William,I want to hire.
And you say, what do you want tohire?
And I say this.
And this now contains, here'swhat the job does.
Here are the KPIs and theresults that we get out of this.
And when I go to finance, by theway, the job posting also has in
it something different.
(27:12):
The job description has KPIs.
The job posting has first yearresults.
So if I'm hiring a vicepresident of marketing, right?
I want to be saying to thatperson, by the end of your first
year, here's what you're goingto have accomplished.
And here's what we're going tocelebrate you for.
You've created a 15 percentincrease in customer lifetime
value.
You've moved NPS from 50 to 75,done X, Y, and Z.
(27:34):
And when I go to the CFO or myfinance leader or the business
unit leader, I say, look, here'sthe return on that.
This is, I'm going to hire thisrole, I'm going to pay this much
for it, but here's what I'mgetting back for it.
That's a very differentproposition, and the reason I
can do that is because it takesme 20 minutes.
To sort this out with Athena andto get to this level of
specificity and concreteness.
(27:55):
And so now my path to yes is alot faster.
My ability to outcompete otherswho have their handout for the
same resources is a lotstronger.
And we're all lined up on thesame page.
So now I've got all of the heavywork done.
I just got my yeses.
And so now we talk integrationsand where does that information
flow?
(28:16):
The job posting flows into myATS and out to job boards.
The job description flows intomy HRMS, ultimately, and, and to
be paired with an employeerecord when I hire somebody, and
my social media posts, which areSEO optimized, if I've connected
my personal or my corporateaccounts, gets posted to social
(28:39):
media.
William Tincup (28:41):
Drops mic, walks off stage.
Scott, thank you so much forcoming on the Use Case Podcast.
It's been amazing.
Scott Morriss (28:48):
I appreciate the interest in us, William, and
thanks for the opportunity totalk about it.
We're, we're really committed tomaking the world better on, on
this front, and we think this isthe right spot to start.
So thanks for the opportunity
William Tincup (28:59):
to talk about it.
Absolutely.
And thanks everyone forlistening.
Until next time.
This is William Tincup, and you're listening to
the Use Case Podcast.
Today we have Scott Owen fromPropulsion AI, and we'll be
learning about the businesscase, the cost benefit analysis,
or the use case for whycustomers pick Propulsion AI.
Scott, would you do us a favorand introduce yourself and
Propulsion AI?
Scott Morriss (00:43):
Absolutely, William.
And first of all, thanks forhaving me on.
I'm happy to be here with you.
So I have, I have about 20 yearsworth of experience across
almost every discipline of HR.
I've been a chief HR officer,chief people officer for
organizations as large as 15,000.
And as small as 150.
And believe me, in the smallerorganizations, I've been a hands
(01:06):
on leader.
Right.
And, um, and, and dug in deep,elbow deep, shoulder deep, I
think in a lot of cases to everysingle discipline of HR, whether
that's compensation and actuallydoing frontline comp analysis,
or whether it's recruiting atthe executive level or
recruiting at the technicallevel.
Um, learning and development iswhere I started and, and
(01:27):
obviously steering the function.
Uh, and after 20 years, youknow, I realized that a lot of
the tools that I was strugglingwith.
We're built by really smartengineers, but they weren't
built by practitioners.
William Tincup (01:40):
I like how you said really smart engineers,
rather than just sayingengineers.
Scott Morriss (01:46):
I'm careful with that because as a founder, I'm
learning about how hard it is tobuild intelligent apps.
Good point.
And I don't want to be overlycritical, but there are so many
apps that they work for the ITfolks.
Right.
Don't work for the HR folks.
And it's silly.
And it causes these struggles.
And, and in a lot of cases, Ithink, honestly, if you ask the
(02:08):
HR people what they needed, theywould tell you the things that
their managers and that theiremployees needed.
Right.
And, and it doesn't feel likeanybody listened to that.
So I said, you know what, I'mnot doing this anymore.
I quit my job and I founded acompany and we are committed to
building company.
That is, you know, centeredaround what HR people and
(02:28):
leaders need in order to get thework done that they're doing.
And that's, that's the genesisof Propulsion AI.
William Tincup (02:33):
And so where do we, uh, first of all, I love the
story and I love HR leaders,recruiting leaders that kind of
come out and then go, if theyfind a problem and then they
basically say, there's got to bea better way and they can't find
it on the open market.
And then they say, you knowwhat, I'll just build it.
I'll build it myself.
And uh, so I, first of all, Ilove those origin stories.
(02:54):
Um, where did you start?
So what was the, where was thekind of the first impetus or
where you were thinking that youknew, okay, we got to change
this.
This is not just, it's not beingdone well.
Let's go fix this.
Scott Morriss (03:07):
So, so, so I like how you framed that, William,
because there is a foothold thatwe're working on right now.
Right.
But it is just the tip of theiceberg to what we think the
larger problem is.
And the larger problem is justsimply this.
Every year in the United Statesalone, tens of millions of
people go to work in jobs wherethey are just not a fit.
Right.
(03:27):
And that doesn't mean that,like, they're bad employees.
There are, I mean, I, I've beenaround a bunch of people that I
thought were great employees,and they were not a fit for the
company or for the role becausesomebody hadn't taken the time
or been thoughtful enough toreally figure that out.
And unfortunately, individualsdon't have much opportunity to
interview companies and figureout that, that fit for
(03:49):
themselves.
So the problem that we're reallyfocused on.
And it's a 1.
1 trillion problem in the UnitedStates alone.
It's a 7.
8 trillion problem worldwide.
That lack of fit, which is notthe same as fitting in.
And a guy named Andre Martinjust wrote a great book called
Wrong Fit, Right Fit.
(04:09):
And that, that's the focus of,of the book.
And Andre and I have talkedabout this a couple of different
times.
Fitting in is.
You know, it doesn't feel great,but a lack of fit is a lot
deeper than just that sentiment.
And so that's the problem thatwe're, that we're focused on
solving.
William Tincup (04:28):
And do we fix it?
And do we fix fit all the wayfrom recruiting, uh, through
promoting through succession?
If we actually do successionplanning, et cetera, like where
do we, where's the start andstop or lines of demarcation, or
where do you want to focus
Scott Morriss (04:44):
fit?
Well, I, I think the easiestplace, and especially for us,
because it's what we're workingon right now to release, is the
very beginning.
You know, it's critical for a,for a leader.
If you're a leader working in anorganization, here's what you
know, without a doubt, you'vegot fires that are burning.
You've got people that arecoming into your office and
(05:06):
saying, this is not done.
And you have got to hire, andyou've got to hire quickly.
And the longer it takes you tohire, the more opportunity you
have to miss.
Top candidates.
And the reality is that, youknow, sitting down and scoping a
role takes time.
And on the other side of that,you know, it's, it's critical
(05:26):
that you think through thingsand not only for the bottom
line, although the bottom lineis the easiest place to touch
this, but you want to talk aboutcandidate.
Experience.
If you want to talk aboutemployee engagement, like, you
know, the employee engagementsurvey market is projected by, I
think the end of, of 26 to belike 326 million, William, but
(05:47):
you know what?
You can't have employeeengagement.
If you haven't taken the thoughtbefore you even post or haven't
taken the time before you postedthe role to think through how
that job is going to fit intoyour company strategy.
To figure out what the return onthat job is, right, if you
haven't taken the time to dothat, you are not setting
yourself up for either a goodcandidate experience or for
(06:08):
employee engagement.
So, I think leaders right nowtoday, they're focused on the
symptoms, they're not focused onthe root cause.
And for us, the root cause is,can you sit down and balance
these two things?
You've got to fill the rolequickly and you've got to take
the time to think through howthe, the, the particular job
fits the organizationalstrategy.
William Tincup (06:28):
You know, I love this on so many levels, but, you
know, the thing about kind of,uh, employer brand, because I
know you've studied this stuffas well, is I've always said
that employer brand has torepulse as much as it retracts,
uh, attracts, right?
So, So if we're, if we'retalking about fit, like, as you
said, some, some, sometimes youjust don't fit that manager or
(06:51):
that job, or maybe you've grownout of it and you don't fit it
any longer, or, uh, on the frontend, as you've described, you
know, hiring managers have anidea of what they think will
fit, uh, and candidates have anidea of what they think they fit
and those two don't really syncin any way, shape or form.
So how do you.
How do you get everybody on thesame page around fitability?
(07:14):
So candidates, recruiters,hiring managers, HR, like you
got a different, you got likesix different contingencies here
and they all probably look atfit a little bit differently.
Scott Morriss (07:26):
You know, the, the easiest way to do it, it's
the obvious way to do it, butit's not the way that a lot of
organizations are going to doit.
And that is have a great HRbusiness partner or great senior
recruiter experienced enough topush back on you as a senior
manager, especially, and drivethe conversation and the
thinking into some of theseother areas and get beyond like,
(07:46):
what are the tasks that I wantthis person to do?
And the reason, likeorganizations do that, right?
But that doesn't scale.
That model doesn't scale.
And, and I think we're in an eranow, especially with what's
happening with artificialintelligence and the subset of
AI called machine learning, thatwe can create, we can, we can
(08:07):
take a different approach and wecan scale a whole lot easier,
but the simple answer to yourquestion is we got to get
leaders to change their mindset.
about what's really important,and it starts with, I think, a
simple question.
Do you want people, are yougoing to hire somebody who's
going to do tasks, or are yougoing to hire somebody who's
going to be an owner?
And listen, we could be talkingabout, like, a person that
(08:28):
stands at the, at the counter atChipotle.
You still want them to own apiece of that, that
organization, of theinteractions that they have with
their customer.
But if you start thinking about,like, your job is to punch
buttons on a cash register,that's a, that, you're, you're
dead from the very beginning.
Right.
Right.
William Tincup (08:44):
And so No, go
Scott Morriss (08:46):
ahead.
Go ahead.
Well, so, so, so, but, buthaving an unscalable model, like
we'll just add more HR businesspartners.
We'll just add more recruiters.
That's not working either.
And you know what?
I don't think the recruiterswant that because that's not the
work the recruiter wants to do.
The recruiter wants to work withcandidates and wants to apply
their unique expertise that weneed because it's something
humans do best to really sussingout, is that the right person
(09:08):
for us?
Are they going to fit us indifferent ways and can I reveal
to them?
The fit that we could have forthem.
So I forgot
William Tincup (09:15):
to ask you, and uh, I should, I, I would be
remiss if we get through thewhole podcast and I didn't ask
you about propulsion, like whatdo you, what does the technology
or what does the company
Scott Morriss (09:25):
do?
Well, so here's what we'vecreated.
We've, we have, uh, designed aconversational.
AI product, which is likeworking.
It's like having a seniorrecruiter or an HR business
partner at your side when andwhere you want.
It is an interactive product,which means that this isn't,
(09:47):
this isn't a form filler.
If you look at the market todayand, and particularly for, you
know, tools and platforms thatcreate job descriptions, you're,
you're basically looking at formfillers.
And if it's not a form filler,it's usually somebody that's
tried to tack on some form ofwhat they're calling AI to an
(10:11):
existing product and, and, andsort of hide their, their tech
debt, you know, which isbasically a form filler.
What we've built is an AI firstproduct, which is interactive.
This product engages the user ina conversation.
It's called Spark, the smartplatform for attracting
remarkable candidates.
S P A R C.
It's guided by a digital human,and we've named her Athena.
(10:35):
And what Athena does isbasically interviews you and,
and challenges in some cases,choices that the user wants to
make.
The user's always in command,always responsible for the final
decision.
But what Athena is doing is whata senior HR business partner or
senior recruiter is going to do.
She's also adaptive.
She learns the organization.
(10:56):
Each time you come through tosit down and scope a job, she's
learning about the organization,not only about what you want in
roles, but about the tone andvoice that you use.
In fact, she's consuming thosefrom what you've got already
published on your website, yourcorporate career site, your
Glassdoor page, and other piecesof information that are out on
(11:17):
the web.
And then she takes thatunderstanding that she builds
out of the conversation she'shaving with the user, and she
writes the job posting, shewrites the job description, and
she writes SEO optimized socialmedia posts.
And William, I think I would beremiss if I didn't make the
point quickly for the audiencethat the job description is not
(11:40):
the job posting.
They have different purposes anddifferent functions in so many
organizations.
And it's back to the speedargument, right?
They're erring on the side of,I've got to get this done
quickly.
So they either cut and paste, orthey write something that
they're going to call a jobdescription and they put it on
the web.
And that's just, it's, it'swrong headed.
But it's done for speed.
(12:00):
And what Athena does is she getsin the middle of that and says,
Look, you can have both ofthese.
You don't have to pick one orthe other.
We'll have a conversation.
And by the way, thatconversation, for most
organizations, this process thatI'm talking about takes days in
the best cases and months in theworst cases.
And she turns this activity intosomething you fit into a coffee
(12:21):
break.
And so she conducts thisinterview, leverages that
information, writes the jobposting, which is a marketing
document.
And going back to what you said,and I think you're spot on, it
is designed to attract in theright people and scare the heck
out of the wrong ones so thatyou don't go blind reading
resumes.
She also writes the jobdescription, which has an
audience of exactly one person,and it's the person in that job.
(12:45):
And its purpose is to take theambiguity out of how we are
agreeing.
That the one, the results thatshould get accomplished and two,
how the job should have done.
And she writes all of that foryou.
And then she stores everythingin a library.
And so it's integrated, flowsinto your HR tech stack, flows
(13:06):
to job boards with a singleclick, flows to social media, if
you've connected your accountsand becomes a place where
individuals can collaboratearound this question of what is
this job?
How does it fit the strategy?
And, and how are we going tomeasure its success?
So.
William Tincup (13:22):
Uh, an age old problem that you deal with, uh,
as a, as a former practitioneris how do you, how do you
reconcile the differencesbetween kind of the sourcer, uh,
uh, the recruiter and the hiringmanager?
So we'll just deal with therecruiter and hiring manager.
And so Athena can interview,okay, that's great, but if, if
she's interviewing two people,she's going to potentially, uh,
(13:45):
get two different responses.
How does that get reconciled interms of what actually are we
going to go with?
Scott Morriss (13:53):
So, let me be clear about functionality.
Our, our sort of view of theworld is the hiring manager is
simultaneously the best personto have involved and the
absolute worst.
They are the best person becausethey know the work, right?
And I know, I look, I know as arecruiter, when I've functioned
(14:13):
at either as an executiverecruiter or as a frontline
recruiter.
When I've come in, I am a secondbest solution.
That hiring manager knows thework.
They know the profile.
What they're not good at isgetting all of that out.
What I'm not good at is knowingthe work and I may know how to
get it out.
And that's where Athena comes inbecause Athena creates this with
(14:35):
the hiring manager.
And then that hiring manager cansend it to the sourcer, can send
it to the recruiter, can send itto their team.
And say, what do you think aboutthis?
Yeah, this is
William Tincup (14:45):
the
Scott Morriss (14:45):
job.
That's right.
And what you're really saying isnot just like, here are the
tasks, but here is like, this isan investment.
Salary is an investment.
And we have to be concernedabout what the return is.
So it's like, here are the jobresponsibilities.
And by the way, there aremultiple, we, the way that
Athena writes these, she iswriting them in such a way that
you could fit a whole host oftactics.
(15:08):
Under each one without losingthe heart of what the
responsibility is.
And this is something that mosthiring managers don't do well.
They go down to a tactic, whichcan only be done one way.
Right, right, right.
Athena writes very openly to theheart of what you're trying to
get as an outcome.
William Tincup (15:26):
Oh, I love this.
I love this one.
So many levels.
Let me ask you some by, by sidequestion, if you don't mind.
When you, uh, get to show, uh,Propulsion AI to a prospect for
the first time, what do theyfall in
Scott Morriss (15:38):
love with?
Okay, can I, let me tell you my,my absolute favorite comment
that I've gotten back fromsomeone and then I'll answer
your question directly.
Sure.
So I, I did a demo recently, um,for an individual who's
accountable to, for buying allHR technology for the
organization.
And I got to the end of thedemo, he's got a big smile on
(15:58):
his face and I said like, what Ilike, what kind of egg do I have
on me?
Like, what have I done to screwthis up?
And he goes, I just bought aproduct from, and it was a.
I can't even call them acompetitor because I just don't,
I think they're so old and, andthe focus is just different for
them.
But he said, I just bought thiscompetitor's product.
And he said, I feel like.
(16:19):
I bought a horse and you justshowed me a car and we're
working really hard to unwindthat deal and try and get them
to come in and, and, and testdrive, um, with their work
population, um, spark.
But you know, I think peoplereact, um, there's, there's a
huge feature that gets a lot ofattention and we call it value
(16:40):
added scales.
And it came out of, out of sortof this logic that, I mean,
personally, and I'm sure you'vehad a similar experience, I've
operated, I've been a part oftwo different organizations.
And in each of theseorganizations, I had the exact
same title and I had a verysimilar job description.
(17:00):
Like indistinguishably similar.
And yet in organization one, theneed was for me to perform the
job in a way that was veryconnected to building vision and
building a team and looking downthe road and those kinds of
things.
And in organization number two,I needed to be very execution
focused and very now focused.
(17:22):
And yet the job description forthose two was indistinguishable.
So we said, look, it can't justbe.
The, the job responsibilities,every chief people officer is
accountable to build a healthyculture.
How you do that matters.
And so we created this featurecalled Value Added Scales.
There are 12 of them.
They have between seven andeight dimensions in each.
(17:44):
And what we're asking the userto do is to balance across these
dimensions.
Where does this aspect like biasfor action or strategy versus
execution?
or the way that you organizetasks or, you know, any
dimension that you can think ofwithin and we're hard pressed to
find a job that doesn't fit intothese 12.
(18:04):
Right.
Um, and, and by, by, byadjusting these dimensions, you
effectively create a profilethat says to your applicants,
it's not just And I'll usemyself as an example.
It's, it's not just a chiefpeople officer job.
It is a chief people officer jobthat needs to be done like this.
(18:25):
And that is key to getting theright people to go, Oh, I'm
built like that.
And I love to deliver value likethat.
And the wrong people, even ifthey are top performers to look
at that and go, I think I needto
William Tincup (18:37):
think carefully.
Right.
Which is the whole idea.
Someone can see themselves inthat job and thriving or they
see themselves not in that job.
Which is, both are important.
Both are absolutely important.
Um, I forgot to ask you in termsof market.
Is there any particularindustries or markets or size of
(18:59):
companies or anything like thatthat Propulsion AI is focused on
these days?
Scott Morriss (19:04):
You know, we're, we are a young company.
We are, um, focused as, as suchon a more narrow, um, segment of
the market, but, but that'sbecause that's where we need to
focus.
Right.
These are human problems.
Yeah.
Good point.
And we think that these problemstranscend industry.
There are some cases wherethey're obviously, you know,
they either by virtue of you area more distributed organization,
(19:27):
you need to balance control at acouple of different levels while
maintaining consistency in youremployment brand.
Or in the voice that you use andthose kinds of things, or you're
doing an inordinate amount ofhiring, like, like tech
companies, um, do during, duringcertain periods.
Um, so we think, we think thereare certain organizations that
are going to grab on faster thanothers, but they're human
(19:48):
problems.
They're not, they're notlimited.
William Tincup (19:51):
Yeah.
And I think it's important for astartup to do that.
Uh, I've seen a lot of startupsfail where they try to be all
things to all people, which isgreat, of course, but it's, it's
like, you know what, let's justgo solve this problem with law
firms and, uh, go, go do thatand let's just solve it there.
And then once we do that, wefeel pretty comfortable.
(20:11):
They then let's go solve it foranother area or whatever.
So enterprise is the same way.
It's like, well, you know what,we're going to go do large cap
or even small cap firms, andthis is what we're going to
focus on.
And all of a sudden theircustomers start pulling them
prospects are pulling them upmarket.
So I think it's, I think it'sgood, especially as a startup.
I think it's really great tohave a focus ultimately.
(20:34):
Your customers are going to tellyou where,
Scott Morriss (20:36):
if we,
William Tincup (20:38):
if we listen, you know, at one point the
customers say, let me see overhere.
Okay, great.
Um, the next question I have is,is if someone's not bought
something like this, so go backto your practitioner days.
If you've never bought somethinglike this, the guidance that you
give practitioners that arethinking about buying Propulsion
HR, like what would you script?
(21:00):
Here's the questions you shouldbe
Scott Morriss (21:01):
asking us.
Uh, let me start with this.
We're trying to make it supereasy for any, anybody can have
marketing speak and everycompany wants to still do
everything.
William Tincup (21:14):
It's funny that you said that because I just
came back from HR tech a coupleof weeks ago and it's like, you
talk about marketing speak, youwalk through the expo hall and
there's 500 vendors and it'svery hard not to like get things
confused.
So I could, and that, and, andI've been studying this stuff
for a long time, so it's like,it's okay.
So like I get it.
(21:35):
But for a practitioner to walkthrough that thing, I can't
imagine them being able todiscern what's reality like Hmm.
That actually exists and that'sreal, or Yeah.
You know, something that'smarketing speak.
So I, that, that
Scott Morriss (21:49):
resonates and, and I'm sure, I'm sure when you
walked through that hall youwere like, oh my God, this group
is the best.
And that group is the best.
That group is the Oh, right.
Everybody's the best.
It's
William Tincup (21:57):
hundred percent.
100 percent from boof to boof,you're like, Oh my God, this is
the most amazing thing.
Next thing, Oh my God, this isthe most amazing.
Yeah, I can see that also.
Being a problem for practice
Scott Morriss (22:08):
shoes.
So, so we're not, we, we decidedearly on, we're not going to
play that game, right?
We're not, I don't, I'm notgoing to tell you how great the
company is, but I'm going tomake it really easy and really
simple for you to figure thatout for yourself.
And that starts with.
You know, this is a cloud basedproduct that is zero install,
(22:29):
zero maintenance.
You can turn it on, turn it off.
You want to get in and, and, andwe do a seven day free trial.
So you can come in and there areno limits on it.
There is no, I mean, we, youknow, the only thing we need is
to just validate your account,right?
But beyond that, we don't putany limits on what you can
create.
We don't limit any of thefeatures for you.
Go use the whole thing becausewe are so convinced that when
(22:52):
you use it once, you are goingto want to use it writ large.
The, the solution scales, so itis cloud based.
It's got nothing to, to install.
You can go from a few users tothe entire enterprise with
integrations with very little,very little problem.
(23:12):
There's no PII to what we'vecreated.
So that isn't a concern.
I think, you know, peoplelegitimately right now, I think
people should be thinking deeplyabout AI and bias.
And, you know, what we've, whatwe've created, um, there are
products on the market that willscan for biased language.
(23:36):
We use 26 differentcharacteristics to evaluate what
gets created and, um, editlanguage, suggest edits to you
around biased language becauseour goal is, is to have these
things attract in the rightindividuals and the right
individuals should be attracted.
Not the language shouldn't getin the way what they should be
(23:57):
attracted by is like I wantthose challenges and we don't
want anything to get in the wayof that.
But I think that's a legitimatequestion that buyers should be
asking is what have you donearound bias and and and how
deeply are you thinking aboutthat, and I think they should
ask questions about like what'smy, what's my commitment and how
hard is it to.
To, you know, put in, um, andwhat kind of support do I get?
(24:20):
And, and actually what we'vetried to build here, because
when we do it, you and I knowbecause we're in the business,
but it's not just the act oflike going and working with a
hiring manager to createsomething.
You're going and working withthat hiring manager and you're,
you're creating, but you'retrying to teach them along the
way.
And we've built a teaching tool.
This is, this is not just acontent creator.
(24:40):
It's not just a digital humanthat is working with you like a
human.
It is a, it's a teacher.
I love this.
William Tincup (24:48):
Okay.
Last question.
And I think you touched on itjust a little bit earlier, but
we were talking about workflowand you were talking about
connecting to your, uh, techstack and things like that.
So I'm assuming that this istied into maybe the CRM or the
ATS, but I don't want to assumetoo much.
Where, where would people, whenthey're listening to this, where
(25:08):
would they think about, uh,Propulsion AI being in their
workflow?
Scott Morriss (25:14):
So I think at the very beginning, and let me, let
me tell you, I'll paint what Ithink is a very common story for
people to show you where wethink this product fits in the
world of today.
Like if I, if I report to you,William, and I need to hire,
right, I got a bunch of firesand I'm like, Oh my God, I've
like, I got to get, I got to getpeople in here because my team
(25:35):
is going crazy.
So I come to you and I comeempty handed.
And I say to you, William, I'vegot to hire.
And you say to me, what's thejob do?
And I'm like, oh, God,
William Tincup (25:47):
and how many do you need?
Scott Morriss (25:49):
Right.
And what's it going to cost me?
Right.
And maybe I get past you, but ifI get past you, it's because you
and I have a relationship oftrust and I've proven myself to
be worthy of your trust.
Right.
And yada, yada, right?
But now I've got to go on and Ihave to get budget for this
because maybe we don't havebudget.
So I'm going to have to get pastthe CFO if I'm in a smaller
(26:09):
organization or my financeleader or someone, right?
The business unit leader who'sthinking about all of the varied
choices that they have to makewith money.
And so I'm going to go to thatperson empty handed too.
In the world of, and the reason,by the way, that I go empty
handed is If you're going totell me no, why do I want to
sink a bunch of effort intoanything and then just get told
(26:30):
no, right?
I'll sort it out later becomesthe mentality.
What we think is that this sparkgets utilized at the very
beginning of the journey becauseagain, we've made it so easy to
interact with and so fast.
So rather than coming to you, Igo to Athena.
She and I have a conversation.
She helps me scope the role.
(26:51):
It ends up with a jobdescription in my hand and I
come to you and I say, William,I want to hire.
And you say, what do you want tohire?
And I say this.
And this now contains, here'swhat the job does.
Here are the KPIs and theresults that we get out of this.
And when I go to finance, by theway, the job posting also has in
it something different.
(27:12):
The job description has KPIs.
The job posting has first yearresults.
So if I'm hiring a vicepresident of marketing, right?
I want to be saying to thatperson, by the end of your first
year, here's what you're goingto have accomplished.
And here's what we're going tocelebrate you for.
You've created a 15 percentincrease in customer lifetime
value.
You've moved NPS from 50 to 75,done X, Y, and Z.
(27:34):
And when I go to the CFO or myfinance leader or the business
unit leader, I say, look, here'sthe return on that.
This is, I'm going to hire thisrole, I'm going to pay this much
for it, but here's what I'mgetting back for it.
That's a very differentproposition, and the reason I
can do that is because it takesme 20 minutes.
To sort this out with Athena andto get to this level of
specificity and concreteness.
(27:55):
And so now my path to yes is alot faster.
My ability to outcompete otherswho have their handout for the
same resources is a lotstronger.
And we're all lined up on thesame page.
So now I've got all of the heavywork done.
I just got my yeses.
And so now we talk integrationsand where does that information
flow?
(28:16):
The job posting flows into myATS and out to job boards.
The job description flows intomy HRMS, ultimately, and, and to
be paired with an employeerecord when I hire somebody, and
my social media posts, which areSEO optimized, if I've connected
my personal or my corporateaccounts, gets posted to social
(28:39):
media.
William Tincup (28:41):
Drops mic, walks off stage.
Scott, thank you so much forcoming on the Use Case Podcast.
It's been amazing.
Scott Morriss (28:48):
I appreciate the interest in us, William, and
thanks for the opportunity totalk about it.
We're, we're really committed tomaking the world better on, on
this front, and we think this isthe right spot to start.
So thanks for the opportunity
William Tincup (28:59):
to talk about it.
Absolutely.
And thanks everyone forlistening.
Until next time.
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