July 26, 2022 • 38 mins
In this episode, Laura talks with James Mayes, Founder at Mind the Product and currently an Evangelist at Pendo about why recruiting in tech is so hard and why recruiting technology can make it even harder.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
00:03.99
lauraklein
Hello and welcome to what is wrong with hiring the podcast where we talk about why hiring people and getting hired are both absolute nightmares I'm your host Laura Klein please be advised that this podcast may contain drinking swearing and screaming into the abyss so pretty much like most podcasts. My guest today is James Mays James is the founder is a founder at mind the product which is just gonna say it None of my very favorite conferences and he is now an evangelist at pendo since mine. The product is officially part of the pendo family congratulations on that James and I would like to say specifically pendo.
00:35.61
James
Um.
01:18.27
lauraklein
Is hiring so you could go and work with James if you know you hear something you like I recommend it so James it turns out is ah what he calls a a recovering recruiter and so we're going to do about a little a little 20 year retro here about his experience in in recruiting. Um, so thank you for for spending this time just to rant about recruiting with me. Um I feel like this podcast could go on for days.
01:32.97
James
It It will do. We're kind of going back to some of my early routes here, but it should be fun.
02:12.19
lauraklein
Yeah, and it's interesting. So tell me a little bit about your background So you know people kind of understand where where you're coming from and and what kind of recruiting you've done.
01:57.65
James
I did that classic falling out of university with a degree and not much idea what to do with it wrote to a recruit a few recruiting firms and said hey I've got a binetography some english lit little bit of technology as well. What do what do I do here um one of them was good enough to come back to me and say hey you actually come across remarkably well have you ever thought about recruitment. Um, well no I haven't but if it comes with a paycheck attached. You have my attention so I kind of got into it by accident which I think is probably the way about the None of recruiters actually get into recruiting man.
03:30.23
lauraklein
You know that I actually almost got into recruiting that way and I ended up going a different direction and to this day I think that was actually a mistake I think it would have been a really I think it would have been a great thing but.
03:24.41
James
It's It's honestly it is a brilliant grounding you get to know an awful lot about how different businesses operate work with different firms different skill set and it's fundamentally. It's about dealing with people and solving problems. So it's a really good place to start from Frankly, even if you don't necessarily want to ah build the rest of your career in that space.
04:10.49
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
04:23.61
lauraklein
Yeah, no, and you yeah you learn and you learn all sorts of things about other jobs because you're talking to people who are hiring people for those jobs. It's kind of like getting the inside the inside scoop on you know what do people look like look for when they're.
03:56.27
James
It to smile.
04:08.71
James
Um, it's it.
04:56.70
lauraklein
Hiring a product manager an engineer or whatever. But.
04:26.41
James
Do you learn a chunk about you know, writing copy and sales and negotiating and positioning and scheduling and all sorts of useful things. No not till I mean when when was the last person but when was the last time you heard a person say hey have you heard of that recruiter son. So I really like that recruiter.
05:10.17
lauraklein
Um, yeah, yeah, not an easy job though.
05:03.65
James
Recruit is I'm not well liked. It's just not a thing you know you they're upli with real estate agents aren.
05:37.29
lauraklein
Oh I don't know I don't know I I like 1 or 2 of them I like I have some that listen to this podcast I'm sure they're lovely people. That's that's actually the problem is I actually am sure that they're lovely people and I've I've liked several of them. But so many people have.
05:33.69
James
Um, absolutely and that's that driven we can talk about this a little more but it's it's driven partially by the client side partially by the candidate side and the recruiters. The ones that are stuck in the middle and it's really easy to hate on the messenger. Yeah.
06:14.67
lauraklein
Bad experiences with some. Yeah yeah.
06:34.69
lauraklein
It really is tell tell me about that. What how? how are we because I've been both a candidate and a hiring manager. Um all within the last year so or a little over year. Um, how how have I made your life difficult or people like me how have we made your life difficult.
06:17.35
James
Right.
(00:31):
06:32.39
James
As a client you tend to find that customers are constantly pushing for the best possible service they can get and at the same time looking for that bark investment price which one is it. You want you know this one. You can't have fast cheap and high quality. That's not how it works.
07:16.21
lauraklein
Ah.
07:32.23
lauraklein
Now.
07:08.30
James
And yet client after client says can we bring those fees down a little bit but also could you raise the quality of the candidates and get them here faster.
07:50.93
lauraklein
I mean frankly, they always say pick 2 You know fast you know fast, cheap or good and they say pick 2 I'm going to say you get 1 But.
07:25.31
James
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely you know that's that is the regular customer ask of every recruiter and as a Ux designer, especially you know that's not reasonable and yet. Um.
08:23.81
lauraklein
No oh, it's ridiculous. Yeah, and and yet.
08:04.51
James
Yeah, and and then on the candidate Side. You know I think a lot of candidates do do themselves a disservice when they get to that point of saying okay I'm now leaving my job I'm looking for the next one they go out and they start searching based on their job title of what's available in the local area or what's available in the right salary Brackley They don't actually say is this still the job I want. Not enough people take that time to reflect back and say I'm going into the next thing and it was roughly like what I did last time but a little step forward or a little step up or a little step further on or whatever it might be.. They don't reflect on the whole nature of am I still in the right industry am I still doing the right job is this time for me to change entirely could I see myself.
09:31.23
lauraklein
Are.
09:21.85
James
What among my skills might actually be useful and applicable elsewhere. I mean I got to the end of None ears in recruiting went slideways through a tech startup building a Twitter -based jobs board that fell apart disastrously. We can talk about that one another time as well and then ended up working in a conference business focused on technology product managers. And ended up running the thing. It's been a fantastic ride but nothing about that says should be a recruitter or yeah, it's not fairly logical path.
10:49.11
lauraklein
As as somebody who likes to refer to herself as a ah recovering engineer and also by the way I've done um research and product management and ah now I manage Ux designers. Um yes I hear you? ah but.
10:43.29
James
Um, I know.
11:22.47
lauraklein
Never never been a problem for me but I but I get it. It's that that having that discussion I think we don't I think hiring managers song is we don't make it easy on people either to figure out even like is this the right job for you. Even if it's the same job. Right? Like there's so many job descriptions out there that just like just look the same.
11:28.63
James
Oh absolutely. And yeah and I would I would also point to particularly our industries being relatively nascent in their development if I asked 10 chief product officers. What does a good product manager look like how many different answers am I going to get tech.
12:37.33
lauraklein
Don't know never seen oh sorry. Ah yeah, no, it really doesn't but I think I think you could very easily describe what would make a great product manager or designer or engineer.
12:06.81
James
Um, but this does not make it easy for the candidate right? yeah.
13:12.53
lauraklein
On this project for which I am hiring which is a different question or um I'm I'm helping a friend ah at my office recruit for something called ah, an engineering development manager which a lot of companies don't even have or and.
12:44.73
James
Is you good.
13:50.91
lauraklein
Or sorry um a ux to ah Ux Developer manager and it's it's kind of a weird thing and like we have to describe like what does that person. Do you manage Ux Developers What's that you know so coming up with that.
13:22.41
James
2
13:48.99
James
Well I think I think a lot of times you know you you look at the drop spec particularly includes a long old list of skills that are needed and a list of skills that are relevant and a list of skills that in 95% of the person's time. There won't be used.
(00:52):
14:27.43
lauraklein
Hard.
14:38.43
lauraklein
So.
14:52.77
lauraklein
See yeah.
14:26.90
James
You end up trying to find a candidate trying to interview kindliness against a laundry list of 15 twenty twenty five thirty technical skills you and I both know 90% of their time in that job is going to be focused on these 1 or 2 things. So why are we being distracted by these other 22 over here. Let's just.
15:18.67
lauraklein
And.
15:32.23
lauraklein
Yeah, it's it's do you think some of it is that sometimes large companies are trying to hire people who will fit kind of wherever um yeah.
15:00.65
James
It's fluff. It's distraction.
15:21.65
James
I Think that is an element to it Sure Yeah, let's go with that. That's a nice generous way out for me but there we go now you're getting closer to it. Yeah.
16:06.55
lauraklein
I mean and sometimes we just don't want to think about it and it's hard and it's the last thing on our mind which let's take a look. Yeah, yeah let's talk a little bit about the problems that that causes for recruiters because for any hiring managers that are listening James is about to explain to you why you are making your lives. So much worse and so much harder than they need to be by just not focusing a little but.
16:16.99
James
Just step back and think about what that person is going to spend the vast majority of their time doing because typically it's not None different things. It's going to be None or 2 things that they spend most of their time on it's going to be fairly repetitive. Be honest, if you're writing code or doing design. Yeah there's a couple of tools that you live in pretty much day night. The other 1720. They're really not. They're nice to haves and that's cool. You've probably got other people in your teams. We've got some of those skills too. So let's show a little bit of Flex. We know what a cross-functional team is like we can move around with that a little bit if you get somebody who's absolutely killer. And the thing where they're spending most of their time you're gonna win honestly, it's gonna make all the difference in the world. You're gonna have somebody who's super happy because they're doing the thing they love. You're going to have somebody super effective because they've absolutely monstered it and they're not being distracted by a little bit of this little bit of that and a little bit of the other all over the place.
18:01.89
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
18:27.67
lauraklein
And if they do need another skill. You know they can learn it. You know training is it that we don't have to hire. We don't have to have other companies pre-train. All of our people. It's amazing.
18:00.81
James
Um, you know training training is a thing Apparently no.
18:24.27
James
Although that does remind me that classic line in the training space sort of somebody goes up to the the director asking for a little bit of budget to to help with training and it's like but what happens if we start training our people and then they leave but what happens if you don't train them and they stay.
19:25.70
lauraklein
Yeah, ah, exactly yes and you know we we can talk I always feel like there's another podcast to be had about how to keep good people and you know make them happy or make sure that they come back if they decide to leave or you know set up an an environment where you know it's It's just.. It's a good place and people want to be there. Um that that's ah, a different a different podcast. Sadly um, but just talking about getting them in the door. Um, what are some of the other things that you've run into that just make it an absolute nightmare either for recruiters or for candidates.
20:03.35
James
I Think for candidates a lot of the time. The actual first part of the journey is the worst and when I worked in recruit and tech some time ago. One of the things I would often prompt clients to do was go home this evening go to your career site and apply for one of your own jobs. In fact, better. Still don't wait till you get Home. Try Do it from your mobile on the train tell me how that goes it like please attack please attach you with you be here? Yeah because everybody's got that stored on the mobile right is so much of these things that just they're not designed with the candidate in mind and.
21:11.87
lauraklein
Oh oof. Ah, no.
21:33.73
lauraklein
Um, yeah, oh absolutely, who wouldn't ah.
21:19.35
James
There's certain parts of the candidate experience that you should be putting barriers in there. You know you want to make the candidate do a little bit of running make sure they're actually committed make sure they do their research and they actually turn up for the interview prepared sure. But there are also certain parts of the process where you should be saying how can we make this easier. There are certain parts of the process. But you don't need to create barriers for the sake of it.
22:27.17
lauraklein
Yeah, well and it's interesting and you mentioned the the making sure that people have done a little bit of research and I would I would I agree I would I would emphasize a little bit. Um, you know people apply to a lot of places and I I Strongly I want people to look at all their options I don't. I don't need people to have you know written a master's thesis on my particular company and and I don't expect them to really know anything about you know my particular thing at the company if it's something kind of niche or you know something that isn't really obvious. Um. Know what's in the job description right? and they should know Generally what the company does. But I don't expect them to go out and do you know a book report.
23:14.99
James
Stop.
(01:13):
23:28.75
James
No I mean I there's there's a level of research that I have seen some companies ask for that I do think is ridiculous, but there's also a level of research that I would regard as being common courtesy or decent manners like how does your company make money if I have to explain that to you at an interview.
24:12.63
lauraklein
Ah.
24:04.83
James
We might have a problem here.
24:38.83
lauraklein
Yeah, and it's funny because I absolutely as a candidate want to know that and I want to know that at the level that I can from public disclosures I might I may still ask a few pointed questions because I have I have certain standards.
24:26.27
James
Yeah.
24:39.10
James
With this this one comes to me because of a horror story earlier in my recruiting years. And yeah you mentioned funny stories at 1 point like what is one for you I had a call from a client to say ah we have an issue canada just walked out of an interview halfway through.
25:14.71
lauraklein
But no, it's I don't know.
25:17.10
James
Um, well happened the Jos spoke was perfect I gave them the info pack on the company. They knew exactly who you were they you found you all right? all i' wrong? Oh well, they discovered that um the project that we're working on is missile guidance systems and they're opposed to working for an arms company. You're called. B a weapon systems. How did they not want that.
26:38.30
lauraklein
Yeah I would have thought that that would have been a a giveaway did they think it was a different kind of of weapons like you know Replica swords.
26:16.91
James
Um I can only imagine what other kind of weapon one I Can only imagine what other kind of Weapon guidance systems. They might have had in mind. Yeah.
27:05.19
lauraklein
I Thought it was more sort of emotional weapons. You know, theoretical weapons. Maybe um, you know, barbed speech or witty Repartee I don't know. Um, yeah.
26:58.69
James
Um, no say that politicians surely.
27:40.99
lauraklein
Yeah, that's um I would say that that would be the level at which I would not expect but I would not expect to see that happen. Yeah, um, yeah.
27:23.71
James
Know I like I fact I don't expect war and peace on you. Yeah I don't to expect you to write a novel on why you should work here but do a little bit of basic research understand where you fit within the company and how the company makes money that's surely that's table stakes.
28:16.87
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.. It's interesting to ah you mentioned and I'm going to call back to something that you mentioned earlier because I I think I do want to dig into this a little bit. Um, most mostly I just want to commiserate here. Um. You talked a little bit about the the systems for actually applying and kind of how those get in our way. Um, can we just talk about a lot of recruiting technology and why is it so bad like what there are so many pieces involved and they ah none of them. Seem to fit together right? or do quite the right thing.
29:02.29
James
Well let's start with most of it was built around about same time as the fax machine and unfortunately the facts died out and the recruition tech didn't um, there's there's there's an awful lot of it that just literally it was designed to say you used to fax Cvs from 1 place to another cool. We could use technology to do some of that.
29:49.87
lauraklein
I Mean yes, but.
30:05.90
lauraklein
Death.
29:41.99
James
And systems were introduced to do that and they they replicated that basic process and didn't actually get much smarter than that quite a few of them and you know this bit. You're getting very close to one of my rank buttons right now. Um, youre yeah, you're looking for it I.
30:43.29
lauraklein
I've just I've I've like pushing it that the screen click the click.
30:20.99
James
You looking for it something that drives me absolutely nuts is what I call the missed opportunity of digital transformation and I think it hit recruiting in the same way as it hit almost every other industry and I'm going to use banks as an example just because they deserve it. Um. When you talk to banks about digital transformation. An awful lot of what they're actually doing is taking what they used to do in a branch and making it available online now that for me is the digital part. What I'm looking for here is the transformation part. Now a lot of these Journeys have been going on for the last twenty years we see people going in and out of these projects time and time again. It turnss up on their Cvs with a load of regret sure but look at it from a candidate point of view or indeed a banking consumer point of view. We've been through something of a rough time over the last couple of years I think everybody can agree and then I'm willing to bet.
(01:34):
32:25.30
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
32:04.45
James
Pretty much every part of your consumer behavior has changed have you seen any recognition of that from your bank most of the digital transformation I see done in Banks is simply scaling bad process faster.
33:06.87
lauraklein
Yeah I.
32:40.29
James
There's very little of the ax engaging with a customer. What are they doing what problem are they trying to solve how is their life changed what things can we take account of what Lumpsy and exactly the same applies to an awful lot of re recruitment processes.
33:35.45
lauraklein
I Feel like this applies to any of those big customizable often on-prem On-premise but not always anymore now that we have the Cloud Um, but dating myself but these very big customizable like.
33:22.13
James
6
34:09.72
lauraklein
Crm systems or Erp systems or Vms or ats like all of these different like all of these what they would call back office processes that have internal audiences and instead of thinking about like what what could be the right process.
33:49.83
James
Death.
34:45.91
lauraklein
To get the outcomes that we want like you know oh I don't know a Ux design process or a service design process. They just take yeah I agree like they take what they have I ran about this all the time they take what what they have and they try to kind of shoehorn it into the product and then they like change weird bits about it because the system doesn't.
34:18.39
James
Now the.
34:45.83
James
You get.
35:22.69
lauraklein
Support What they really need and it just turns into this franken product.
34:55.85
James
You get all of that and then you have the added benefit when you're talking about these big companies of the final purchasing decision being made by somebody in in procurement who's not actually touched a recruiting process any time in the last decade that look um.
35:49.17
lauraklein
Um, yeah, or ever sometimes right like they don't they they don't use the Uts right? Yeah, um.
35:28.91
James
That's not the person who should be making the decisions they should be negotiating the contract Sure that's where their expertise lies get me the best price get me the best possible terms go nuts but in terms of actually evaluating those systems. It's too often done by procurement people.
36:31.31
lauraklein
Yeah, and then they're trying to take all of their often quite complicated and custom processes and needs and I mean I've I've talked to some friends who you know work in various different governments and the. Application process at various different governments is just wildly more complex than it is for you know, getting a job really anywhere else but like all these big companies have so many steps and each one of them is just slightly different from the last.
37:02.73
James
Um, Nick.
37:36.87
lauraklein
And they all need slightly different things and they all and it but that all has to go into the system and so it becomes very customized. It becomes just incredibly difficult for you know a candidate who might be applying to hundreds of places which is its own problem. Ah.
37:39.63
James
It really is yeah um, and yeah, there's ah, there's a certain element of job ball blame to be assigned here. You know I As as as as we have the green light on this. Um.
38:15.81
lauraklein
Candidates like the hundreds of places.
38:33.99
lauraklein
Dupe feel free to blame I I will not defend us.
(01:55):
38:18.33
James
Yeah, about 2030 years you were looking around for a job and you would look at which employers are in the local area or within a commutable radius who do interesting things that I have some respect for and I'd like to go and I will approach those firms I will go find myself a job or I'll talk to a local recruiting agent and tell them hey this is what I'm looking for It's a little easy now to go hit up for a job board and say I'm looking for a design post in Washington poless to things come up Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick apply to all that's just wasting everybody's time and technology enables bad behaviors on all parts.
39:52.45
lauraklein
Yeah, and then on the other side of it that means that all of the recruiters and sourcers on you know at each of those companies gets None applicants for a particular position. 995 of which are just not yeah and it makes it hard because it it like there might be There might be None of those who could do the job but it's hard to find those like weird 5 that might not look exactly right because you get so used to rejecting people. Just on site like if you have 10 seconds to review a group to review a portfolio or a resume.
40:35.87
James
1 second is spectacularly d ah generous. You are being too nice.
41:19.59
lauraklein
Ah, that is um, rarely said about me but go on please continue I I like where this is going. Yeah.
40:56.75
James
I I suspect the reality is an awful lot of resumes people read the first 2 lines and they moved on you open it up and you move on honestly 10 seconds I think is generous in a lot of cases.
41:50.70
lauraklein
Really well some of them just get um, deleted they get thrown out automatically because they don't have the right Keywords which is also horrifying.
41:32.75
James
Yeah, which you know that's that's the perhaps the updated version of the I Onlymi Hire Lucky people joke right.
42:19.65
lauraklein
Tell tell that joke for those who have not heard it because it is worth it.
41:55.11
James
Ah, the the sales director many many years ago who was insistent that he would only hire lucky candidates looked at the pile of his risk of resumes on his desk picks up the top half puts it in a bin there we go. We have now excluded the unlucky people let's come. Let's move forward.
42:51.17
lauraklein
But yeah, exactly which of course is why you should always send to resume. No I'm kidding. Ah that also doesn't work. Ah.
42:34.55
James
While we're doing the the multiple applications thing let's also hit that the other way and talk a little about job Board aggregators and and and the role that they fulfill in the space because from a candidate perspective you hit the job board. You apply to that role. You go to another job board. You apply to that role. You go to another suddenly you start to put it together hang on.
43:21.33
lauraklein
Sir.
43:10.97
James
I think I've just applied for the same role 8 different times through 8 different drop boards candidates where their time is now starting to feel bitter meanwhile the recruiter at the other end of that is getting the same candidate cb 8 times through 8 different drop boards boom that doesn't feel like technology's improving my life.
43:46.83
lauraklein
If.
44:01.49
lauraklein
Yeah man now. Even even when it's just through one. Um, when I was trying to use it because you know I do a lot of hiring and when I was trying to use the app tracking system. You know people would apply to 3 or 4 different roles.
44:04.41
James
Um, yep.
44:40.47
lauraklein
And because of the way it's all set up and everything it was like it was very hard. It was It was hard both to say no to this person generally because they're just not Qualified. You know so take them out entirely from everywhere or it was also equally hard if I was like you know they applied. This one but I really think they'd be better for this other one over here. That's in a because they have you know more similar thing but they just didn't see that job and didn't apply somehow both are hard and I don't know why that is like we're basically telling people you have to apply to every single one of these 10 similar roles. At the company. But Also we're making it hard to then accept or reject you on this.
45:32.87
James
Um, that there are I have seen some companies in some systems that will do good work there. They start to get to the point where hey candidate X applied wasn't right for this role send a polite rejection message leave it in the pile of applicants interested in our firm and when firms get this right.
46:15.90
lauraklein
Here.
46:34.99
lauraklein
Is a.
46:13.30
James
Recruiters will then tap that database in future and say hey who's in the pile of people who are interested in us. Maybe there's some gold nuggets in there that we can pick out. We do good things it does exist I seen it done but it doesn't happen often enough largely because recruiters don't have that time. But.
(02:16):
46:55.49
lauraklein
Yeah.
47:09.49
lauraklein
Well, the way that they're often at large companies at least the way that they're often resourced is across different projects. So like there's no benefit to somebody getting you know hiring a ux designer for another you know, wreck that isn't theirs which is we just.
47:07.53
James
Um, yeah, have the company because they got the resource app right? They are wearing to go and they can't get at it. You know they've done a hard.
47:46.37
lauraklein
Terrible for the candidate. Um, yeah. Yeah, we spent all this time. Yeah, we spent all this time sourcing this person maybe had ah an interview with the hiring manager. Maybe they were you know again, there's there is often such a thing as great but not great for this ah somebody as somebody who is either. Fantastic or an absolute disaster in certain roles. Um often with exactly the same title but it's funny because I think I know a lot of people who are like that and I I don't know if it's just the people I happen to know or if it's just that's.
48:31.55
James
I Think this I'm willing to go out and a limb here is just the a it is the nature of things and B you probably collect slightly more of those people than most ah color me.
49:03.41
lauraklein
The nature of things right? like all Ux designer positions are different.
49:28.71
lauraklein
I Do know a lot of people with opinions. Yeah I mean I guess if they don't have strong opinions. Yeah yeah, no anyway, but this is not about me this is this is about ah this is this is about.
49:08.85
James
Advised. There We go here. We get the truth of it. Hello we go? Well, you know we're near Up. We're clearing a few rants out here which is certainly enjoyable I've not had the opportunity to do this for a while on the recruiting topic at least? um.
50:05.21
lauraklein
Hiring managers. Ah.
50:21.57
lauraklein
Yeah plates.
49:50.55
James
Want to hit another one if I may ah I get annoyed with the fact that we continuously refer to it as recruiting. We tell we tell everybody that we're recruiting and yet everything about the process is optimized for the reverse you get a None applicants applying to a job. You're going to hire.
50:34.53
lauraklein
Talk to me about that.
50:29.83
James
None which means 99% of Candlelets are getting rejected. This is a rejection engine the most but awful lot of the engineering that goes into this process is designed to to say out of None How can we reject the irrelevant ones fastest so that we're just left with a bit that we want. A friend of mine explained this to me beautifully about fifteen odd years ago using a light bulb analogy. So the energy that goes into a light bulb something like None 97 98% of the energy actually comes out as heat. So it is in fact, a heater not a light bulb. We call it a light bulb because that's the outcome that we're looking for the actual outcome. Mostly is heat well with the processes that we're talking to today talking about today. The majority of the actual outcome is rejection and yet we ignore that and we handle it so terribly badly if you talk to most candidates. The biggest complaint that they have is that they never hear anything back most were happy just work most will be happy just to hear I'm sorry you didn't make the car.
52:53.73
lauraklein
I Mean happy is probably not the right word. But I mean satisfied happier. Yeah, absolutely yeah, you.
52:23.45
James
They don't even get that and you but yeah, no that they would be significantly impressed. If somebody said you didn't make the cut because and just gave them a one liar on why they got picked at the post and why somebody else was more interesting and the bit that drives me nuts about that is that that is the same. Right across the board and particularly with consumer- facingcing companies now with some big banking brands perhaps or perhaps more so with wholesale banking brands customers don't hear about them. They'd do business-to business transactions the whole time. Nobody cares. They have no consumer- facingcing brand but you see this with consumer- facing brands all the time. And imagine you apply for a job at a coffee company. You don't hear back. You still drink coffee and yet you just burnt that custom Relationship. You burnt that Brand. You could have been leaving that with something more positive every opportunity in that respect. It's a marketing exercise you market to the candidates to get them to apply and then you tell them nothing.
54:17.83
lauraklein
Yeah.
54:17.91
James
Kind of feels like it clicked off a transaction and left it incomplete. There's no closure there for anybody and that just makes it bad page.
54:50.35
lauraklein
Wit.
55:01.49
lauraklein
Interestingly yeah, interestingly I have um I've done a weird thing I have recommended to friends jobs that I applied for and did not get because I thought that the hiring process was actually good. And I liked the people that I interviewed with but it just wasn't the right job for me and I've absolutely said you know this wasn't really the right job for me. They were looking for somebody with like actual visual skills which I do not have and I would have told them that upfront. Um, had they put that on the job description but given that like.
55:07.57
James
Exhibit 5
56:12.91
lauraklein
This might be perfect for you but I would never do that if they didn't tell me that that's why I didn't get selected.
(02:37):
55:53.67
James
That's it if you if you hear back from the company and you have a good experience and it's not right and that company says hey we are looking at high rus I'm sorry this didn't feel out but here's where you could perhaps work on how you present how you come across here some useful career guidance just offer a little bit of something back and you know nice hunt.
56:46.55
lauraklein
Ah.
56:28.71
James
And times out of 10 You have professional acquaintances you have professional fit spheres peers that move in similar spheres yourself, you're going to know other people that are potentially right for that job. But it's just ignored half the time and again I I'm being generous when I say None
57:19.70
lauraklein
Yeah, and. And I would say that that's not necessary for like those I have gotten many many many resumes for people who I would say I acknowledge the fact that the job description was not perfect, but they clearly didn't even read it. You know. Like I but like no none of none of this is applicable like this is not I am looking for somebody with any Ux design experience. And yeah.
57:38.10
James
Okay, let's let's have a little dig on that one then because I see the same artifact being used in both parts of the process on a regular basis and that drives me nuts as Well. The job specification. The thing that you want the person to do. And the job advert are separate documents. They are designed to represent the firm and the task in different ways that are designed to solve different parts of the process. Please stop using the same document for both parts.
59:15.81
lauraklein
Tell me tell me a little bit more about that. What are the the 2 pieces and what are the 2 things they're meant to solve for.
58:52.51
James
The actual detail of the job. What you're going to be doing on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, go hard on that in the spec that helps the interview figure out which questions to ask where to dig deeper that helps the candidate understand what they're going to be doing on a day-to-day basis. But the actual job advert. That's just designed to get people a little bit excited. Give them a little taste and get them to the next stage of the process if you give me a None page job spec that tells me absolutely everything I want and then slam that on the careers page. That's not going to get people excited enough and it's a competitive jobs market out there I'm not saying your job appper.
01:00:25.75
lauraklein
Interesting.
01:00:00.93
James
Needs to lie. That's not where we're going with this but you need to make it a little bit more juicy than a job spec task list bullet point of skills. They are different artifacts they they are designed to solve for different problems. 1 is designed to bring a lot of people into the process and the other is designed to help you narrow it down and get the right one.
01:00:43.29
lauraklein
Yeah.
01:00:57.59
lauraklein
I've.
01:01:07.10
lauraklein
Yeah, it's interesting I've actually had really good luck um posting ah like on Linkedin and just being very clear like these are the 4 things about the jobs that I'm looking for and this is what the job is and like this is these are the things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this.
01:01:01.53
James
That's great. You're bringing it down from that laundry list of 30 irrelevant skills to 4 things I need you to do 4 things.
01:01:43.17
lauraklein
This is what you have like you have to have these user non-negotiable. Um, other than that this is what you do in the job if this fits you ping me and let's chat.
01:01:23.45
James
Yeah, yeah, and yeah, as ah as as an out as an outward looking advert that and something around the mission and the values that you hold dear. Yeah, if you if you've got the right attitude if you've got the right values alignment then. But honest, you, you should be able to make a go of that in a lot of cases because as we covered earlier competencies can actually be trained. But if you're not aligned on values and Mission. That's never going to Work. It's going to end up in disappointment for one or both parties. So Let's add a bit more of that into the an envelope.
01:02:39.73
lauraklein
Yeah.
01:02:56.41
lauraklein
Yeah I mean.
01:02:33.61
James
And you know if you want to filter people out the process filter them out based on values if our values don't align. Let's stop this right here right? Yeah, this Absolutely yeah, let's.
01:03:16.35
lauraklein
If you're not interested in building weapons systems for example, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to not be interested in building I get it.
01:03:06.11
James
That right up front save everybody else a little bit of time.
01:03:39.77
lauraklein
Come on. That's that's the whole plot to 1 of my favorite 8080 s movies of all times. Real genius.
(02:58):
01:03:17.69
James
Yeah, yeah, money values based recruiting is is certainly increasing in the Uk on see more of it I don't know so much about the us market right now but to me getting those values right out there upfront is so much more important to people especially now than it ever was before. People are less attached to salary these days. The market's been good. There's some good salaries out there. Um people are more interested in saying I really believe in this thing I will work on this thing I'm aligned with where it's going I'm aligned with its cultural values.
01:04:47.29
lauraklein
Yeah, it's it's interesting. You say that people are less attached to salaries. But then you said because salaries are good and I think that that matters a tremendous amount like salaries are higher than than they were I mean right now at this moment we may be entering a recession who knows it's aren't hard to say.
01:04:29.79
James
Um, no.
01:04:41.65
James
Well I think I know you're thinking be some changes over the next couple of months it's going to be uncomfortable in a few places and a few timess they're going to be looking at those highs going Jesus we're paying how much. Ah.
01:05:30.13
lauraklein
Go to 1 what? yeah but I would say it's it's not so much that people are less attached to salary as that their salary basic minimums are are kind of being met and other things really make that that huge difference as well.
01:05:22.79
James
Who is that and you know you've you've got whether you call it the great reset or the great resignation or whatever you might be people are reevaluating their lives and trying to think a little bit harder about what they actually want to spend their time on and that means they need to feel some sort of values alignment with the organization that they're joining. It makes.
01:06:15.10
lauraklein
E.
01:06:26.27
lauraklein
Yeah, absolutely I I.
01:06:01.37
James
It makes a bigger difference I'm seeing it make a bigger difference than it ever has before.
01:06:36.43
lauraklein
Now it's ah a great point. Um I do have None question for you which this is and this could be something that we've already talked about or something entirely different, but what is if you had to like say this is the thing this is the thing that makes it the hardest about hiring or getting hired. What is it? what What's the thing we should fix.
01:06:43.71
James
I think people on both sides can be a little bit more direct about what they actually want to do day to day and what actually needs to be done day to-day I think candidates will quite happily dress that up a little bit more and say actually I'm happy to get involved here and here and here and do this and do this and do this? No you not let's be honest. You really love doing None or 2 parts of that so you know draw those out paint big pictures around them make it really really clear which bits you really love and then if I know that this job is only going to ask you to do that every third friday I probably have the job for you is it and likewise I think clients can do the same they can say yeah. Vast majority of this job is focused on this thing here. There's all these other things here that are nice too. Main focus this thing here. So let's go hard. Let's be really clear that is the main thing if this main thing don't float your boat ain't gonna work out. Well yeah, you know it's like it's like that that directness and clarity I think there's.
01:08:52.50
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah I.
01:08:31.93
James
I think recruiting has evolved a lot over the last few years especially and some good things have happened in there. But it's also led to an awful lot of additional things that need to be messaged and talked about and it takes away from that core focus of what is the thing to be done where am I going to be spending most of my time does that make me happy does that fulfill your needs. Because if that thing is in some way out of balance unhappiness awaits.
01:09:47.17
lauraklein
And it's I think a really interesting red flag when you ask the hiring manager. So what does this job do and they cannot answer it or they dance around and it's a lot of kind of hand waving and like well you know.
01:09:22.77
James
No.
01:09:36.11
James
Yep.
01:09:46.23
James
Yeah I I got into I got into this debate actually with somebody on Linkedin the other night actually um, gentleman called Jason Knight who runs a brilliant podcast on product as it happens and he was talking about. You know, a lot of friends ask me what does a product manager. Do.
01:10:20.93
lauraklein
But sweet build alignment across oh shut up. What am I going to do ah.
01:10:25.90
James
And you know yeah had a variety of different answers coming out and it's like we get involved in trying to figure out this and maybe do with it and no, no, no what you're doing is talking about the outcomes that product managers are supposed to achieve. You're not talking about what they actually do on a day-to-day basis and if somebody says to you? What does the product manager. Do they mean. What do you do on a day-to-day basis when you turn up at work. You put yourself a cup of Joe and then you start doing things. What are the things you do, but.
01:11:46.59
lauraklein
Yeah, and specifically especially for things like product management and Ux design I mean and I'm sure lots of other things but specifically those which I know a lot about what does one of those do at your company in your organization on your team because it can be.
01:11:29.39
James
More.
(03:19):
01:12:26.30
lauraklein
Oldly different at you know a startup versus at a what we're what are calling. We're calling the Mengus now.
01:11:57.35
James
Yep Absolutely I didn't know know you know of ah from a product manager's Perspective. You can get involved in pricing Strategic alignment Stakeholder Management Customer research Littlell be ux and design some product typing maybe on a bad Day. You're doing a bit of code. Um, a good day you head down in the analytics. It can be any number of a dozen different things which one of those things which are those things am I going to be doing most often where is my family mostly going to end you know good. Exactly.
01:13:13.79
lauraklein
Going to meetings. Ah yeah, yeah, what does that look like at your organization and that is that is all I am asking that people do on their on their actual job descriptions and um, yeah, just being honest with people about.
01:13:17.77
James
That yeah and the script there's much more dressing it up now that a lot of that is is hard. It's I'm not saying people deliberately obfuscated but it is harder to find.
01:13:53.10
lauraklein
This is what the job is I I yeah.
01:14:09.70
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, and I want the funny thing is I want fewer people to apply and I want them to really really want to do this thing I would be so much happier to be able to spend I know 20 seconds on a resume. Ah.
01:13:56.15
James
Um, yeah, that's great, never enough. Yeah I mean that's ah, that's the value of of focus and segmentation though right? I mean from a mind of product Perspective. We've been running a a job board here for years and the best bit of feedback I ever saw was from a client who said we advertised the job on a certain. Well-known, professional networking site. Yeah, we.
01:14:44.71
lauraklein
Instead of 10 Ah yeah, yeah.
01:15:13.69
lauraklein
Don't know which point you're talking about ah sure. But.
01:14:47.39
James
We had a None applicants and none of them were interesting. We advertised the job on the minor product site. We had 3 applicants interviewed all 3 and hired to that feels pretty much to be like the Holy Grail but you're clear about what you want and you're advertising it in the right place where only those kind of people will see it. That's.
01:15:48.35
lauraklein
All right? Well you heard you heard it here folks if you're looking to hire a good product manager you know where to find them mind the product currently has a job board good to know, but that is all the time that we have for today and I just want to thank James.
01:15:31.43
James
Proud.
01:16:23.99
lauraklein
So much for for joining us and I also want to thank all of you for listening and wish you all the best of luck with your own search whether it's for a new job or a new employee I'm rooting for you.
00:03.99
lauraklein
Hello and welcome to what is wrong with hiring the podcast where we talk about why hiring people and getting hired are both absolute nightmares I'm your host Laura Klein please be advised that this podcast may contain drinking swearing and screaming into the abyss so pretty much like most podcasts. My guest today is James Mays James is the founder is a founder at mind the product which is just gonna say it None of my very favorite conferences and he is now an evangelist at pendo since mine. The product is officially part of the pendo family congratulations on that James and I would like to say specifically pendo.
00:35.61
James
Um.
01:18.27
lauraklein
Is hiring so you could go and work with James if you know you hear something you like I recommend it so James it turns out is ah what he calls a a recovering recruiter and so we're going to do about a little a little 20 year retro here about his experience in in recruiting. Um, so thank you for for spending this time just to rant about recruiting with me. Um I feel like this podcast could go on for days.
01:32.97
James
It It will do. We're kind of going back to some of my early routes here, but it should be fun.
02:12.19
lauraklein
Yeah, and it's interesting. So tell me a little bit about your background So you know people kind of understand where where you're coming from and and what kind of recruiting you've done.
01:57.65
James
I did that classic falling out of university with a degree and not much idea what to do with it wrote to a recruit a few recruiting firms and said hey I've got a binetography some english lit little bit of technology as well. What do what do I do here um one of them was good enough to come back to me and say hey you actually come across remarkably well have you ever thought about recruitment. Um, well no I haven't but if it comes with a paycheck attached. You have my attention so I kind of got into it by accident which I think is probably the way about the None of recruiters actually get into recruiting man.
03:30.23
lauraklein
You know that I actually almost got into recruiting that way and I ended up going a different direction and to this day I think that was actually a mistake I think it would have been a really I think it would have been a great thing but.
03:24.41
James
It's It's honestly it is a brilliant grounding you get to know an awful lot about how different businesses operate work with different firms different skill set and it's fundamentally. It's about dealing with people and solving problems. So it's a really good place to start from Frankly, even if you don't necessarily want to ah build the rest of your career in that space.
04:10.49
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
04:23.61
lauraklein
Yeah, no, and you yeah you learn and you learn all sorts of things about other jobs because you're talking to people who are hiring people for those jobs. It's kind of like getting the inside the inside scoop on you know what do people look like look for when they're.
03:56.27
James
It to smile.
04:08.71
James
Um, it's it.
04:56.70
lauraklein
Hiring a product manager an engineer or whatever. But.
04:26.41
James
Do you learn a chunk about you know, writing copy and sales and negotiating and positioning and scheduling and all sorts of useful things. No not till I mean when when was the last person but when was the last time you heard a person say hey have you heard of that recruiter son. So I really like that recruiter.
05:10.17
lauraklein
Um, yeah, yeah, not an easy job though.
05:03.65
James
Recruit is I'm not well liked. It's just not a thing you know you they're upli with real estate agents aren.
05:37.29
lauraklein
Oh I don't know I don't know I I like 1 or 2 of them I like I have some that listen to this podcast I'm sure they're lovely people. That's that's actually the problem is I actually am sure that they're lovely people and I've I've liked several of them. But so many people have.
05:33.69
James
Um, absolutely and that's that driven we can talk about this a little more but it's it's driven partially by the client side partially by the candidate side and the recruiters. The ones that are stuck in the middle and it's really easy to hate on the messenger. Yeah.
06:14.67
lauraklein
Bad experiences with some. Yeah yeah.
06:34.69
lauraklein
It really is tell tell me about that. What how? how are we because I've been both a candidate and a hiring manager. Um all within the last year so or a little over year. Um, how how have I made your life difficult or people like me how have we made your life difficult.
06:17.35
James
Right.
(00:31):
06:32.39
James
As a client you tend to find that customers are constantly pushing for the best possible service they can get and at the same time looking for that bark investment price which one is it. You want you know this one. You can't have fast cheap and high quality. That's not how it works.
07:16.21
lauraklein
Ah.
07:32.23
lauraklein
Now.
07:08.30
James
And yet client after client says can we bring those fees down a little bit but also could you raise the quality of the candidates and get them here faster.
07:50.93
lauraklein
I mean frankly, they always say pick 2 You know fast you know fast, cheap or good and they say pick 2 I'm going to say you get 1 But.
07:25.31
James
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely you know that's that is the regular customer ask of every recruiter and as a Ux designer, especially you know that's not reasonable and yet. Um.
08:23.81
lauraklein
No oh, it's ridiculous. Yeah, and and yet.
08:04.51
James
Yeah, and and then on the candidate Side. You know I think a lot of candidates do do themselves a disservice when they get to that point of saying okay I'm now leaving my job I'm looking for the next one they go out and they start searching based on their job title of what's available in the local area or what's available in the right salary Brackley They don't actually say is this still the job I want. Not enough people take that time to reflect back and say I'm going into the next thing and it was roughly like what I did last time but a little step forward or a little step up or a little step further on or whatever it might be.. They don't reflect on the whole nature of am I still in the right industry am I still doing the right job is this time for me to change entirely could I see myself.
09:31.23
lauraklein
Are.
09:21.85
James
What among my skills might actually be useful and applicable elsewhere. I mean I got to the end of None ears in recruiting went slideways through a tech startup building a Twitter -based jobs board that fell apart disastrously. We can talk about that one another time as well and then ended up working in a conference business focused on technology product managers. And ended up running the thing. It's been a fantastic ride but nothing about that says should be a recruitter or yeah, it's not fairly logical path.
10:49.11
lauraklein
As as somebody who likes to refer to herself as a ah recovering engineer and also by the way I've done um research and product management and ah now I manage Ux designers. Um yes I hear you? ah but.
10:43.29
James
Um, I know.
11:22.47
lauraklein
Never never been a problem for me but I but I get it. It's that that having that discussion I think we don't I think hiring managers song is we don't make it easy on people either to figure out even like is this the right job for you. Even if it's the same job. Right? Like there's so many job descriptions out there that just like just look the same.
11:28.63
James
Oh absolutely. And yeah and I would I would also point to particularly our industries being relatively nascent in their development if I asked 10 chief product officers. What does a good product manager look like how many different answers am I going to get tech.
12:37.33
lauraklein
Don't know never seen oh sorry. Ah yeah, no, it really doesn't but I think I think you could very easily describe what would make a great product manager or designer or engineer.
12:06.81
James
Um, but this does not make it easy for the candidate right? yeah.
13:12.53
lauraklein
On this project for which I am hiring which is a different question or um I'm I'm helping a friend ah at my office recruit for something called ah, an engineering development manager which a lot of companies don't even have or and.
12:44.73
James
Is you good.
13:50.91
lauraklein
Or sorry um a ux to ah Ux Developer manager and it's it's kind of a weird thing and like we have to describe like what does that person. Do you manage Ux Developers What's that you know so coming up with that.
13:22.41
James
2
13:48.99
James
Well I think I think a lot of times you know you you look at the drop spec particularly includes a long old list of skills that are needed and a list of skills that are relevant and a list of skills that in 95% of the person's time. There won't be used.
(00:52):
14:27.43
lauraklein
Hard.
14:38.43
lauraklein
So.
14:52.77
lauraklein
See yeah.
14:26.90
James
You end up trying to find a candidate trying to interview kindliness against a laundry list of 15 twenty twenty five thirty technical skills you and I both know 90% of their time in that job is going to be focused on these 1 or 2 things. So why are we being distracted by these other 22 over here. Let's just.
15:18.67
lauraklein
And.
15:32.23
lauraklein
Yeah, it's it's do you think some of it is that sometimes large companies are trying to hire people who will fit kind of wherever um yeah.
15:00.65
James
It's fluff. It's distraction.
15:21.65
James
I Think that is an element to it Sure Yeah, let's go with that. That's a nice generous way out for me but there we go now you're getting closer to it. Yeah.
16:06.55
lauraklein
I mean and sometimes we just don't want to think about it and it's hard and it's the last thing on our mind which let's take a look. Yeah, yeah let's talk a little bit about the problems that that causes for recruiters because for any hiring managers that are listening James is about to explain to you why you are making your lives. So much worse and so much harder than they need to be by just not focusing a little but.
16:16.99
James
Just step back and think about what that person is going to spend the vast majority of their time doing because typically it's not None different things. It's going to be None or 2 things that they spend most of their time on it's going to be fairly repetitive. Be honest, if you're writing code or doing design. Yeah there's a couple of tools that you live in pretty much day night. The other 1720. They're really not. They're nice to haves and that's cool. You've probably got other people in your teams. We've got some of those skills too. So let's show a little bit of Flex. We know what a cross-functional team is like we can move around with that a little bit if you get somebody who's absolutely killer. And the thing where they're spending most of their time you're gonna win honestly, it's gonna make all the difference in the world. You're gonna have somebody who's super happy because they're doing the thing they love. You're going to have somebody super effective because they've absolutely monstered it and they're not being distracted by a little bit of this little bit of that and a little bit of the other all over the place.
18:01.89
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
18:27.67
lauraklein
And if they do need another skill. You know they can learn it. You know training is it that we don't have to hire. We don't have to have other companies pre-train. All of our people. It's amazing.
18:00.81
James
Um, you know training training is a thing Apparently no.
18:24.27
James
Although that does remind me that classic line in the training space sort of somebody goes up to the the director asking for a little bit of budget to to help with training and it's like but what happens if we start training our people and then they leave but what happens if you don't train them and they stay.
19:25.70
lauraklein
Yeah, ah, exactly yes and you know we we can talk I always feel like there's another podcast to be had about how to keep good people and you know make them happy or make sure that they come back if they decide to leave or you know set up an an environment where you know it's It's just.. It's a good place and people want to be there. Um that that's ah, a different a different podcast. Sadly um, but just talking about getting them in the door. Um, what are some of the other things that you've run into that just make it an absolute nightmare either for recruiters or for candidates.
20:03.35
James
I Think for candidates a lot of the time. The actual first part of the journey is the worst and when I worked in recruit and tech some time ago. One of the things I would often prompt clients to do was go home this evening go to your career site and apply for one of your own jobs. In fact, better. Still don't wait till you get Home. Try Do it from your mobile on the train tell me how that goes it like please attack please attach you with you be here? Yeah because everybody's got that stored on the mobile right is so much of these things that just they're not designed with the candidate in mind and.
21:11.87
lauraklein
Oh oof. Ah, no.
21:33.73
lauraklein
Um, yeah, oh absolutely, who wouldn't ah.
21:19.35
James
There's certain parts of the candidate experience that you should be putting barriers in there. You know you want to make the candidate do a little bit of running make sure they're actually committed make sure they do their research and they actually turn up for the interview prepared sure. But there are also certain parts of the process where you should be saying how can we make this easier. There are certain parts of the process. But you don't need to create barriers for the sake of it.
22:27.17
lauraklein
Yeah, well and it's interesting and you mentioned the the making sure that people have done a little bit of research and I would I would I agree I would I would emphasize a little bit. Um, you know people apply to a lot of places and I I Strongly I want people to look at all their options I don't. I don't need people to have you know written a master's thesis on my particular company and and I don't expect them to really know anything about you know my particular thing at the company if it's something kind of niche or you know something that isn't really obvious. Um. Know what's in the job description right? and they should know Generally what the company does. But I don't expect them to go out and do you know a book report.
23:14.99
James
Stop.
(01:13):
23:28.75
James
No I mean I there's there's a level of research that I have seen some companies ask for that I do think is ridiculous, but there's also a level of research that I would regard as being common courtesy or decent manners like how does your company make money if I have to explain that to you at an interview.
24:12.63
lauraklein
Ah.
24:04.83
James
We might have a problem here.
24:38.83
lauraklein
Yeah, and it's funny because I absolutely as a candidate want to know that and I want to know that at the level that I can from public disclosures I might I may still ask a few pointed questions because I have I have certain standards.
24:26.27
James
Yeah.
24:39.10
James
With this this one comes to me because of a horror story earlier in my recruiting years. And yeah you mentioned funny stories at 1 point like what is one for you I had a call from a client to say ah we have an issue canada just walked out of an interview halfway through.
25:14.71
lauraklein
But no, it's I don't know.
25:17.10
James
Um, well happened the Jos spoke was perfect I gave them the info pack on the company. They knew exactly who you were they you found you all right? all i' wrong? Oh well, they discovered that um the project that we're working on is missile guidance systems and they're opposed to working for an arms company. You're called. B a weapon systems. How did they not want that.
26:38.30
lauraklein
Yeah I would have thought that that would have been a a giveaway did they think it was a different kind of of weapons like you know Replica swords.
26:16.91
James
Um I can only imagine what other kind of weapon one I Can only imagine what other kind of Weapon guidance systems. They might have had in mind. Yeah.
27:05.19
lauraklein
I Thought it was more sort of emotional weapons. You know, theoretical weapons. Maybe um, you know, barbed speech or witty Repartee I don't know. Um, yeah.
26:58.69
James
Um, no say that politicians surely.
27:40.99
lauraklein
Yeah, that's um I would say that that would be the level at which I would not expect but I would not expect to see that happen. Yeah, um, yeah.
27:23.71
James
Know I like I fact I don't expect war and peace on you. Yeah I don't to expect you to write a novel on why you should work here but do a little bit of basic research understand where you fit within the company and how the company makes money that's surely that's table stakes.
28:16.87
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.. It's interesting to ah you mentioned and I'm going to call back to something that you mentioned earlier because I I think I do want to dig into this a little bit. Um, most mostly I just want to commiserate here. Um. You talked a little bit about the the systems for actually applying and kind of how those get in our way. Um, can we just talk about a lot of recruiting technology and why is it so bad like what there are so many pieces involved and they ah none of them. Seem to fit together right? or do quite the right thing.
29:02.29
James
Well let's start with most of it was built around about same time as the fax machine and unfortunately the facts died out and the recruition tech didn't um, there's there's there's an awful lot of it that just literally it was designed to say you used to fax Cvs from 1 place to another cool. We could use technology to do some of that.
29:49.87
lauraklein
I Mean yes, but.
30:05.90
lauraklein
Death.
29:41.99
James
And systems were introduced to do that and they they replicated that basic process and didn't actually get much smarter than that quite a few of them and you know this bit. You're getting very close to one of my rank buttons right now. Um, youre yeah, you're looking for it I.
30:43.29
lauraklein
I've just I've I've like pushing it that the screen click the click.
30:20.99
James
You looking for it something that drives me absolutely nuts is what I call the missed opportunity of digital transformation and I think it hit recruiting in the same way as it hit almost every other industry and I'm going to use banks as an example just because they deserve it. Um. When you talk to banks about digital transformation. An awful lot of what they're actually doing is taking what they used to do in a branch and making it available online now that for me is the digital part. What I'm looking for here is the transformation part. Now a lot of these Journeys have been going on for the last twenty years we see people going in and out of these projects time and time again. It turnss up on their Cvs with a load of regret sure but look at it from a candidate point of view or indeed a banking consumer point of view. We've been through something of a rough time over the last couple of years I think everybody can agree and then I'm willing to bet.
(01:34):
32:25.30
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
32:04.45
James
Pretty much every part of your consumer behavior has changed have you seen any recognition of that from your bank most of the digital transformation I see done in Banks is simply scaling bad process faster.
33:06.87
lauraklein
Yeah I.
32:40.29
James
There's very little of the ax engaging with a customer. What are they doing what problem are they trying to solve how is their life changed what things can we take account of what Lumpsy and exactly the same applies to an awful lot of re recruitment processes.
33:35.45
lauraklein
I Feel like this applies to any of those big customizable often on-prem On-premise but not always anymore now that we have the Cloud Um, but dating myself but these very big customizable like.
33:22.13
James
6
34:09.72
lauraklein
Crm systems or Erp systems or Vms or ats like all of these different like all of these what they would call back office processes that have internal audiences and instead of thinking about like what what could be the right process.
33:49.83
James
Death.
34:45.91
lauraklein
To get the outcomes that we want like you know oh I don't know a Ux design process or a service design process. They just take yeah I agree like they take what they have I ran about this all the time they take what what they have and they try to kind of shoehorn it into the product and then they like change weird bits about it because the system doesn't.
34:18.39
James
Now the.
34:45.83
James
You get.
35:22.69
lauraklein
Support What they really need and it just turns into this franken product.
34:55.85
James
You get all of that and then you have the added benefit when you're talking about these big companies of the final purchasing decision being made by somebody in in procurement who's not actually touched a recruiting process any time in the last decade that look um.
35:49.17
lauraklein
Um, yeah, or ever sometimes right like they don't they they don't use the Uts right? Yeah, um.
35:28.91
James
That's not the person who should be making the decisions they should be negotiating the contract Sure that's where their expertise lies get me the best price get me the best possible terms go nuts but in terms of actually evaluating those systems. It's too often done by procurement people.
36:31.31
lauraklein
Yeah, and then they're trying to take all of their often quite complicated and custom processes and needs and I mean I've I've talked to some friends who you know work in various different governments and the. Application process at various different governments is just wildly more complex than it is for you know, getting a job really anywhere else but like all these big companies have so many steps and each one of them is just slightly different from the last.
37:02.73
James
Um, Nick.
37:36.87
lauraklein
And they all need slightly different things and they all and it but that all has to go into the system and so it becomes very customized. It becomes just incredibly difficult for you know a candidate who might be applying to hundreds of places which is its own problem. Ah.
37:39.63
James
It really is yeah um, and yeah, there's ah, there's a certain element of job ball blame to be assigned here. You know I As as as as we have the green light on this. Um.
38:15.81
lauraklein
Candidates like the hundreds of places.
38:33.99
lauraklein
Dupe feel free to blame I I will not defend us.
(01:55):
38:18.33
James
Yeah, about 2030 years you were looking around for a job and you would look at which employers are in the local area or within a commutable radius who do interesting things that I have some respect for and I'd like to go and I will approach those firms I will go find myself a job or I'll talk to a local recruiting agent and tell them hey this is what I'm looking for It's a little easy now to go hit up for a job board and say I'm looking for a design post in Washington poless to things come up Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick apply to all that's just wasting everybody's time and technology enables bad behaviors on all parts.
39:52.45
lauraklein
Yeah, and then on the other side of it that means that all of the recruiters and sourcers on you know at each of those companies gets None applicants for a particular position. 995 of which are just not yeah and it makes it hard because it it like there might be There might be None of those who could do the job but it's hard to find those like weird 5 that might not look exactly right because you get so used to rejecting people. Just on site like if you have 10 seconds to review a group to review a portfolio or a resume.
40:35.87
James
1 second is spectacularly d ah generous. You are being too nice.
41:19.59
lauraklein
Ah, that is um, rarely said about me but go on please continue I I like where this is going. Yeah.
40:56.75
James
I I suspect the reality is an awful lot of resumes people read the first 2 lines and they moved on you open it up and you move on honestly 10 seconds I think is generous in a lot of cases.
41:50.70
lauraklein
Really well some of them just get um, deleted they get thrown out automatically because they don't have the right Keywords which is also horrifying.
41:32.75
James
Yeah, which you know that's that's the perhaps the updated version of the I Onlymi Hire Lucky people joke right.
42:19.65
lauraklein
Tell tell that joke for those who have not heard it because it is worth it.
41:55.11
James
Ah, the the sales director many many years ago who was insistent that he would only hire lucky candidates looked at the pile of his risk of resumes on his desk picks up the top half puts it in a bin there we go. We have now excluded the unlucky people let's come. Let's move forward.
42:51.17
lauraklein
But yeah, exactly which of course is why you should always send to resume. No I'm kidding. Ah that also doesn't work. Ah.
42:34.55
James
While we're doing the the multiple applications thing let's also hit that the other way and talk a little about job Board aggregators and and and the role that they fulfill in the space because from a candidate perspective you hit the job board. You apply to that role. You go to another job board. You apply to that role. You go to another suddenly you start to put it together hang on.
43:21.33
lauraklein
Sir.
43:10.97
James
I think I've just applied for the same role 8 different times through 8 different drop boards candidates where their time is now starting to feel bitter meanwhile the recruiter at the other end of that is getting the same candidate cb 8 times through 8 different drop boards boom that doesn't feel like technology's improving my life.
43:46.83
lauraklein
If.
44:01.49
lauraklein
Yeah man now. Even even when it's just through one. Um, when I was trying to use it because you know I do a lot of hiring and when I was trying to use the app tracking system. You know people would apply to 3 or 4 different roles.
44:04.41
James
Um, yep.
44:40.47
lauraklein
And because of the way it's all set up and everything it was like it was very hard. It was It was hard both to say no to this person generally because they're just not Qualified. You know so take them out entirely from everywhere or it was also equally hard if I was like you know they applied. This one but I really think they'd be better for this other one over here. That's in a because they have you know more similar thing but they just didn't see that job and didn't apply somehow both are hard and I don't know why that is like we're basically telling people you have to apply to every single one of these 10 similar roles. At the company. But Also we're making it hard to then accept or reject you on this.
45:32.87
James
Um, that there are I have seen some companies in some systems that will do good work there. They start to get to the point where hey candidate X applied wasn't right for this role send a polite rejection message leave it in the pile of applicants interested in our firm and when firms get this right.
46:15.90
lauraklein
Here.
46:34.99
lauraklein
Is a.
46:13.30
James
Recruiters will then tap that database in future and say hey who's in the pile of people who are interested in us. Maybe there's some gold nuggets in there that we can pick out. We do good things it does exist I seen it done but it doesn't happen often enough largely because recruiters don't have that time. But.
(02:16):
46:55.49
lauraklein
Yeah.
47:09.49
lauraklein
Well, the way that they're often at large companies at least the way that they're often resourced is across different projects. So like there's no benefit to somebody getting you know hiring a ux designer for another you know, wreck that isn't theirs which is we just.
47:07.53
James
Um, yeah, have the company because they got the resource app right? They are wearing to go and they can't get at it. You know they've done a hard.
47:46.37
lauraklein
Terrible for the candidate. Um, yeah. Yeah, we spent all this time. Yeah, we spent all this time sourcing this person maybe had ah an interview with the hiring manager. Maybe they were you know again, there's there is often such a thing as great but not great for this ah somebody as somebody who is either. Fantastic or an absolute disaster in certain roles. Um often with exactly the same title but it's funny because I think I know a lot of people who are like that and I I don't know if it's just the people I happen to know or if it's just that's.
48:31.55
James
I Think this I'm willing to go out and a limb here is just the a it is the nature of things and B you probably collect slightly more of those people than most ah color me.
49:03.41
lauraklein
The nature of things right? like all Ux designer positions are different.
49:28.71
lauraklein
I Do know a lot of people with opinions. Yeah I mean I guess if they don't have strong opinions. Yeah yeah, no anyway, but this is not about me this is this is about ah this is this is about.
49:08.85
James
Advised. There We go here. We get the truth of it. Hello we go? Well, you know we're near Up. We're clearing a few rants out here which is certainly enjoyable I've not had the opportunity to do this for a while on the recruiting topic at least? um.
50:05.21
lauraklein
Hiring managers. Ah.
50:21.57
lauraklein
Yeah plates.
49:50.55
James
Want to hit another one if I may ah I get annoyed with the fact that we continuously refer to it as recruiting. We tell we tell everybody that we're recruiting and yet everything about the process is optimized for the reverse you get a None applicants applying to a job. You're going to hire.
50:34.53
lauraklein
Talk to me about that.
50:29.83
James
None which means 99% of Candlelets are getting rejected. This is a rejection engine the most but awful lot of the engineering that goes into this process is designed to to say out of None How can we reject the irrelevant ones fastest so that we're just left with a bit that we want. A friend of mine explained this to me beautifully about fifteen odd years ago using a light bulb analogy. So the energy that goes into a light bulb something like None 97 98% of the energy actually comes out as heat. So it is in fact, a heater not a light bulb. We call it a light bulb because that's the outcome that we're looking for the actual outcome. Mostly is heat well with the processes that we're talking to today talking about today. The majority of the actual outcome is rejection and yet we ignore that and we handle it so terribly badly if you talk to most candidates. The biggest complaint that they have is that they never hear anything back most were happy just work most will be happy just to hear I'm sorry you didn't make the car.
52:53.73
lauraklein
I Mean happy is probably not the right word. But I mean satisfied happier. Yeah, absolutely yeah, you.
52:23.45
James
They don't even get that and you but yeah, no that they would be significantly impressed. If somebody said you didn't make the cut because and just gave them a one liar on why they got picked at the post and why somebody else was more interesting and the bit that drives me nuts about that is that that is the same. Right across the board and particularly with consumer- facingcing companies now with some big banking brands perhaps or perhaps more so with wholesale banking brands customers don't hear about them. They'd do business-to business transactions the whole time. Nobody cares. They have no consumer- facingcing brand but you see this with consumer- facing brands all the time. And imagine you apply for a job at a coffee company. You don't hear back. You still drink coffee and yet you just burnt that custom Relationship. You burnt that Brand. You could have been leaving that with something more positive every opportunity in that respect. It's a marketing exercise you market to the candidates to get them to apply and then you tell them nothing.
54:17.83
lauraklein
Yeah.
54:17.91
James
Kind of feels like it clicked off a transaction and left it incomplete. There's no closure there for anybody and that just makes it bad page.
54:50.35
lauraklein
Wit.
55:01.49
lauraklein
Interestingly yeah, interestingly I have um I've done a weird thing I have recommended to friends jobs that I applied for and did not get because I thought that the hiring process was actually good. And I liked the people that I interviewed with but it just wasn't the right job for me and I've absolutely said you know this wasn't really the right job for me. They were looking for somebody with like actual visual skills which I do not have and I would have told them that upfront. Um, had they put that on the job description but given that like.
55:07.57
James
Exhibit 5
56:12.91
lauraklein
This might be perfect for you but I would never do that if they didn't tell me that that's why I didn't get selected.
(02:37):
55:53.67
James
That's it if you if you hear back from the company and you have a good experience and it's not right and that company says hey we are looking at high rus I'm sorry this didn't feel out but here's where you could perhaps work on how you present how you come across here some useful career guidance just offer a little bit of something back and you know nice hunt.
56:46.55
lauraklein
Ah.
56:28.71
James
And times out of 10 You have professional acquaintances you have professional fit spheres peers that move in similar spheres yourself, you're going to know other people that are potentially right for that job. But it's just ignored half the time and again I I'm being generous when I say None
57:19.70
lauraklein
Yeah, and. And I would say that that's not necessary for like those I have gotten many many many resumes for people who I would say I acknowledge the fact that the job description was not perfect, but they clearly didn't even read it. You know. Like I but like no none of none of this is applicable like this is not I am looking for somebody with any Ux design experience. And yeah.
57:38.10
James
Okay, let's let's have a little dig on that one then because I see the same artifact being used in both parts of the process on a regular basis and that drives me nuts as Well. The job specification. The thing that you want the person to do. And the job advert are separate documents. They are designed to represent the firm and the task in different ways that are designed to solve different parts of the process. Please stop using the same document for both parts.
59:15.81
lauraklein
Tell me tell me a little bit more about that. What are the the 2 pieces and what are the 2 things they're meant to solve for.
58:52.51
James
The actual detail of the job. What you're going to be doing on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, go hard on that in the spec that helps the interview figure out which questions to ask where to dig deeper that helps the candidate understand what they're going to be doing on a day-to-day basis. But the actual job advert. That's just designed to get people a little bit excited. Give them a little taste and get them to the next stage of the process if you give me a None page job spec that tells me absolutely everything I want and then slam that on the careers page. That's not going to get people excited enough and it's a competitive jobs market out there I'm not saying your job appper.
01:00:25.75
lauraklein
Interesting.
01:00:00.93
James
Needs to lie. That's not where we're going with this but you need to make it a little bit more juicy than a job spec task list bullet point of skills. They are different artifacts they they are designed to solve for different problems. 1 is designed to bring a lot of people into the process and the other is designed to help you narrow it down and get the right one.
01:00:43.29
lauraklein
Yeah.
01:00:57.59
lauraklein
I've.
01:01:07.10
lauraklein
Yeah, it's interesting I've actually had really good luck um posting ah like on Linkedin and just being very clear like these are the 4 things about the jobs that I'm looking for and this is what the job is and like this is these are the things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this.
01:01:01.53
James
That's great. You're bringing it down from that laundry list of 30 irrelevant skills to 4 things I need you to do 4 things.
01:01:43.17
lauraklein
This is what you have like you have to have these user non-negotiable. Um, other than that this is what you do in the job if this fits you ping me and let's chat.
01:01:23.45
James
Yeah, yeah, and yeah, as ah as as an out as an outward looking advert that and something around the mission and the values that you hold dear. Yeah, if you if you've got the right attitude if you've got the right values alignment then. But honest, you, you should be able to make a go of that in a lot of cases because as we covered earlier competencies can actually be trained. But if you're not aligned on values and Mission. That's never going to Work. It's going to end up in disappointment for one or both parties. So Let's add a bit more of that into the an envelope.
01:02:39.73
lauraklein
Yeah.
01:02:56.41
lauraklein
Yeah I mean.
01:02:33.61
James
And you know if you want to filter people out the process filter them out based on values if our values don't align. Let's stop this right here right? Yeah, this Absolutely yeah, let's.
01:03:16.35
lauraklein
If you're not interested in building weapons systems for example, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to not be interested in building I get it.
01:03:06.11
James
That right up front save everybody else a little bit of time.
01:03:39.77
lauraklein
Come on. That's that's the whole plot to 1 of my favorite 8080 s movies of all times. Real genius.
(02:58):
01:03:17.69
James
Yeah, yeah, money values based recruiting is is certainly increasing in the Uk on see more of it I don't know so much about the us market right now but to me getting those values right out there upfront is so much more important to people especially now than it ever was before. People are less attached to salary these days. The market's been good. There's some good salaries out there. Um people are more interested in saying I really believe in this thing I will work on this thing I'm aligned with where it's going I'm aligned with its cultural values.
01:04:47.29
lauraklein
Yeah, it's it's interesting. You say that people are less attached to salaries. But then you said because salaries are good and I think that that matters a tremendous amount like salaries are higher than than they were I mean right now at this moment we may be entering a recession who knows it's aren't hard to say.
01:04:29.79
James
Um, no.
01:04:41.65
James
Well I think I know you're thinking be some changes over the next couple of months it's going to be uncomfortable in a few places and a few timess they're going to be looking at those highs going Jesus we're paying how much. Ah.
01:05:30.13
lauraklein
Go to 1 what? yeah but I would say it's it's not so much that people are less attached to salary as that their salary basic minimums are are kind of being met and other things really make that that huge difference as well.
01:05:22.79
James
Who is that and you know you've you've got whether you call it the great reset or the great resignation or whatever you might be people are reevaluating their lives and trying to think a little bit harder about what they actually want to spend their time on and that means they need to feel some sort of values alignment with the organization that they're joining. It makes.
01:06:15.10
lauraklein
E.
01:06:26.27
lauraklein
Yeah, absolutely I I.
01:06:01.37
James
It makes a bigger difference I'm seeing it make a bigger difference than it ever has before.
01:06:36.43
lauraklein
Now it's ah a great point. Um I do have None question for you which this is and this could be something that we've already talked about or something entirely different, but what is if you had to like say this is the thing this is the thing that makes it the hardest about hiring or getting hired. What is it? what What's the thing we should fix.
01:06:43.71
James
I think people on both sides can be a little bit more direct about what they actually want to do day to day and what actually needs to be done day to-day I think candidates will quite happily dress that up a little bit more and say actually I'm happy to get involved here and here and here and do this and do this and do this? No you not let's be honest. You really love doing None or 2 parts of that so you know draw those out paint big pictures around them make it really really clear which bits you really love and then if I know that this job is only going to ask you to do that every third friday I probably have the job for you is it and likewise I think clients can do the same they can say yeah. Vast majority of this job is focused on this thing here. There's all these other things here that are nice too. Main focus this thing here. So let's go hard. Let's be really clear that is the main thing if this main thing don't float your boat ain't gonna work out. Well yeah, you know it's like it's like that that directness and clarity I think there's.
01:08:52.50
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah I.
01:08:31.93
James
I think recruiting has evolved a lot over the last few years especially and some good things have happened in there. But it's also led to an awful lot of additional things that need to be messaged and talked about and it takes away from that core focus of what is the thing to be done where am I going to be spending most of my time does that make me happy does that fulfill your needs. Because if that thing is in some way out of balance unhappiness awaits.
01:09:47.17
lauraklein
And it's I think a really interesting red flag when you ask the hiring manager. So what does this job do and they cannot answer it or they dance around and it's a lot of kind of hand waving and like well you know.
01:09:22.77
James
No.
01:09:36.11
James
Yep.
01:09:46.23
James
Yeah I I got into I got into this debate actually with somebody on Linkedin the other night actually um, gentleman called Jason Knight who runs a brilliant podcast on product as it happens and he was talking about. You know, a lot of friends ask me what does a product manager. Do.
01:10:20.93
lauraklein
But sweet build alignment across oh shut up. What am I going to do ah.
01:10:25.90
James
And you know yeah had a variety of different answers coming out and it's like we get involved in trying to figure out this and maybe do with it and no, no, no what you're doing is talking about the outcomes that product managers are supposed to achieve. You're not talking about what they actually do on a day-to-day basis and if somebody says to you? What does the product manager. Do they mean. What do you do on a day-to-day basis when you turn up at work. You put yourself a cup of Joe and then you start doing things. What are the things you do, but.
01:11:46.59
lauraklein
Yeah, and specifically especially for things like product management and Ux design I mean and I'm sure lots of other things but specifically those which I know a lot about what does one of those do at your company in your organization on your team because it can be.
01:11:29.39
James
More.
(03:19):
01:12:26.30
lauraklein
Oldly different at you know a startup versus at a what we're what are calling. We're calling the Mengus now.
01:11:57.35
James
Yep Absolutely I didn't know know you know of ah from a product manager's Perspective. You can get involved in pricing Strategic alignment Stakeholder Management Customer research Littlell be ux and design some product typing maybe on a bad Day. You're doing a bit of code. Um, a good day you head down in the analytics. It can be any number of a dozen different things which one of those things which are those things am I going to be doing most often where is my family mostly going to end you know good. Exactly.
01:13:13.79
lauraklein
Going to meetings. Ah yeah, yeah, what does that look like at your organization and that is that is all I am asking that people do on their on their actual job descriptions and um, yeah, just being honest with people about.
01:13:17.77
James
That yeah and the script there's much more dressing it up now that a lot of that is is hard. It's I'm not saying people deliberately obfuscated but it is harder to find.
01:13:53.10
lauraklein
This is what the job is I I yeah.
01:14:09.70
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, and I want the funny thing is I want fewer people to apply and I want them to really really want to do this thing I would be so much happier to be able to spend I know 20 seconds on a resume. Ah.
01:13:56.15
James
Um, yeah, that's great, never enough. Yeah I mean that's ah, that's the value of of focus and segmentation though right? I mean from a mind of product Perspective. We've been running a a job board here for years and the best bit of feedback I ever saw was from a client who said we advertised the job on a certain. Well-known, professional networking site. Yeah, we.
01:14:44.71
lauraklein
Instead of 10 Ah yeah, yeah.
01:15:13.69
lauraklein
Don't know which point you're talking about ah sure. But.
01:14:47.39
James
We had a None applicants and none of them were interesting. We advertised the job on the minor product site. We had 3 applicants interviewed all 3 and hired to that feels pretty much to be like the Holy Grail but you're clear about what you want and you're advertising it in the right place where only those kind of people will see it. That's.
01:15:48.35
lauraklein
All right? Well you heard you heard it here folks if you're looking to hire a good product manager you know where to find them mind the product currently has a job board good to know, but that is all the time that we have for today and I just want to thank James.
01:15:31.43
James
Proud.
01:16:23.99
lauraklein
So much for for joining us and I also want to thank all of you for listening and wish you all the best of luck with your own search whether it's for a new job or a new employee I'm rooting for you.
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