Episode 111

Jaime Fernandez on Removing Biases and Embracing Objectivity in Talent Acquisition

TIM: We are live on the Objective Hiring Show today. I welcome Jaime. Jaime, welcome to the show.

JAIME: Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

TIM: It is absolutely our pleasure. And where I'd love to start is just to hear a little bit more about you. Who are you? Who are we talking to today?

JAIME: Yeah. I'm Jaime. I'm the currently the global head of talent acquisition, people analytics for the love honey group. I've been working in nature and in recruitment specifically for about 10 years. I'm originally from Spain, graduated in psychology and also have like postgraduates and a master's degree. Yeah, that's me on a glimpse, living in Bali.

TIM: Living in Berlin, but I noticed you studied in Oviedo. Did you grow up around that?

JAIME: yeah, I'm from I'm from Mieres, which is a place which is about 20 minutes driving from Oviedo. And I lived most of my life in Gijón, which is the northest city in the country, in Spain.

TIM: Nice.

JAIME: studied the psychology and two of my postgraduate degrees and then another one in Madrid and then I moved to London I studied there in Kingston University, London.

TIM: Wonderful. Wonderful. I haven't been to Spain since I was 18. I miss it dearly. Saw some great football last time I was there. But just to show my age, Ronaldinho is still playing for Barcelona. So it's a long time ago, unfortunately.

JAIME: Definitely, I think it's like 2006, that, probably, yeah.

TIM: Yeah, exactly. It's been a while, but I should get back, and I should watch a bit of Oviedo. They're probably in the second division these days. Are they Oviedo? Jaime made it to

TIM: Yeah.

JAIME: In the last game when we got there and maybe this year, after 15 years, if I'm not

TIM: Wow, fingers crossed.

JAIME: 15 years? No. 20, 24 years. 2001. Yeah.

TIM: My god, it's been too long.

JAIME: It's been a while. Yeah.

TIM: Now one thing I'd love to ask you about, actually, is what it is like doing talent acquisition and recruitment for a brand like Love Honey. That must make things very interesting, a little bit different. How do you approach it?

JAIME: Yeah, I thought at the beginning that it would be a bit more complicated, to be frank. I thought that people would be a bit more reluctant to join the company. I'm not sure if your audience knows what we do, but we are the biggest and largest manufacturer and service of sex toys in the world. And I thought at the beginning that people would be a bit more reluctant to join the business or to have second thoughts when it comes to their careers. What I found more interesting, particularly from the point of view of talent acquisition, is that surprisingly, every candidate comes prepared for the interview and knows what the company does, which is something I've never seen before. And then there is a bit of everything. There are people who are passionate about the topic and tell you a bit too much, which you don't really want to hear. And there is another vast majority of people who are just fine. And especially when they come to the office, they just see there's like any other place and any other business, with a bit too many dildos in the desk of people. But that's a different story.

TIM: More, than the average office I would have thought.

JAIME: more, I don't really know if there isn't a study about it. I'm not sure. Maybe we are a bit behind.

TIM: Now, would it be considered a red flag if a candidate asked about staff discounts in the first interview?

JAIME: I've never heard, but I'm sure that many people thought about it. We do have a 50 percent employee discount in case that's okay. wants to know in advance.

TIM: Okay. Excellent. It's good stuff. I feel like I could have mentioned doing recruitment for a business like Love Funny. I feel like that would add a bit of spice, a little bit of interest. And I remember vividly years ago working for a car parking firm in Australia, one of the two biggest car parking companies. And I used to talk to the guy in charge of marketing for the business. And I felt sorry for him because this guy has to market a car park. What could be more boring than that? You know what I mean? And

JAIME: It's complicated. We don't suffer from that. We, I think the only suffering we do is people think like maybe it's going to be fun all day and then you come here and

TIM: It's not.

JAIME: It's just an office. It's

TIM: Yes. Oh, that's awesome. One thing that has not changed in recruitment in a long time. In fact, I'm pretty sure Da Vinci came up with this. That is the curriculum vitae, the resume. He apparently produced the first one 550 years ago, and somehow it survived. It's like the cockroach of the recruitment world. What do you think about CVs? Are they still relevant these days? Are they ever going away?

JAIME: They have. Yeah. Sure. It's a bit of, this is a bit like having interviews. Do you really need to have an interview to get the job? Not really. You don't really need to. It's just that you don't really need to have an assessment. You don't really need to have anything to get the job. You can just know someone and get through the door and sign a contract. It really is the case. We put up these barriers because we are used to doing that. It's because we have that expectation, and the candidate has that expectation as well. The candidate expects that you are going to receive the CV, you're going to review the CV, and then they're going to have an interview; they're going to speak with someone, right? And maybe AI is changing that a bit, but they speak; they still speak with someone, and they think that someone is going to arrive to a human being at some point. Are they I think it's just how it is, and I don't think it's going to change. If you ask me, you can write whatever you want there. It doesn't mean that it's true. It's just to the eyes of the reader. And then we can debate endlessly about the formats and how they are. But I think sometimes, yes. Yes, it takes too much headspace from applicants and from people about the importance of it.

TIM: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right about the fact that it's just someone's opinion about themselves. I could claim to be a rocket scientist. It's hard to disagree at that point of reading it. You can't really verify it one way or another.

JAIME: You can change many things. Depends on the country as well, because then we talked about verifications, credentials, criminal checks, or whatever, and then, in the, depends on the country here in Germany, I could probably say that you were the director and then you were just a team lead and no one will have a check, and that's fine if you do it in another country when they will send you a listing and HR will have to confirm that actually that happened in that time frame. That's a different story, but what you include into what you did. If you're a good actor, you can make it through. Definitely. Yeah,

TIM: And so it's the case that, like, reference checks aren't a standard bit of the process for companies to do.

JAIME: It's possible. There's nothing against that, but it's not really common, to be honest. I haven't seen it happen very often. I have this discussion comes around every now and then, like we should do this, we should do that, but it doesn't really happen often that we do. Yeah. Also because of the validity of the same, that is, the belief, which is probably true, that you cannot say anything wrong about the candidate when applying to a job in terms of references. You just assume that they are never going to tell you what actually happens or why to bother.

TIM: Yeah, I have always tended to agree. I've never done reference checks because I thought they were obviously very biased because it's people the candidate is telling you to speak to, and then they'd have to be a bit of an asshole to actually go, you know what? I don't think you should give the candidate this job. That's throwing them under the bus. So you're never really going to get the honesty. I wouldn't have thought either.

JAIME: Yeah. Yeah, but I agree, and you can also think If the person left, maybe there was a reason for leaving; maybe the other person can speak about the other person. It's just not fair. I don't know. It's a mix of feelings about the reference.

TIM: And so you've said we could almost. Do away with the CV. Maybe we don't even need the interview. Maybe we don't need the reference. What would be your bold vision of how hiring should be done then?

JAIME: I know I do. I do believe that we should do. We should do all these things. Okay. I do. I do believe what I'm saying is that you could not, like in a

TIM: Yes.

JAIME: I don't know. Like a catastrophic scenario. You could just say, Yeah, sign here. We're done, right? I'm sure many people have done it. I have heard terrible stories, like I don't know, companies hyper-growing, looking for people to work in warehouses or delivery drivers, and he's like, Do you have your credentials? Do you have your right to work in the country? Thank you. Sign here. That happens. I do. I do believe that you should receive a CBA. You should speak with a person in my ideal world. I will also pass some standard tests and try to understand a bit how the. The personality is the general capacity of the person, as something more standard, more normative than the usual gut feeling that we usually have. I think that's the right thing to do for me. And to be honest, it's not a shared opinion, and it's not pretty common, but it's my ideal world.

TIM: Not a shared opinion. So other people would view it in a different way.

JAIME: Yeah, so it's very cool, especially in HR, that the test is about passing in the sense of intellectual capacity or personality test. It's not highly appreciated by the professionals in my area. It's more believable that they don't tell you anything or something like that, which are, or they are not fab, which I, they are completely the opposite. My opinion as well. Statistically speaking, so yeah.

TIM: Yes. I, of course, agree with you. Why is it, do you think, on average, talented people tend to favor what I'd call? What I believe is almost like an obsession with cultural fit and placing everything in that. Everything's about things that tend to be a little bit less measurable and almost a distrust of things that are measurable, even if they're imperfect.

JAIME: Measuring is complicated. Measuring and then telling people why I think that's the real problem. Because measuring is complicated. You have to understand a bit of what you are reading. How are you reading it? What is strong in the results? How to feed that profile into your job? So you probably will need to have, prior to even submitting that test to a candidate, an evaluation of what the job will be better suited for, so that takes time. It's complex to explain to hiring managers and hiring teams; it's difficult for them to buy. Then you have to do it with the candidates. It's difficult. Many candidates are also reluctant to pass through these stages well because they also feel like it's not fab, which again, I disagree. I think it's the right thing to do in terms of fun. And then it comes to a part of selling that candidate that are not successful. Why are they not successful? And sometimes it's also that you have to tell them you are, you're not good enough because you got these results in a test, and that's a hard pill to swallow.

TIM: It is. And what's interesting, if I think back to our experience in running a skills assessment platform for six years, we have a feature in our product that allows the company doing the hiring to either tell the candidate their results at the end of the test or not. So either they can get a thanks for doing the test, and that's it, or thanks for doing the test, here's your full score, overall score, breakdown per skill, areas of strengths and weakness, etc. I've noticed that candidates would rarely complain when they get that level of transparency, and it's very clear, oh, I've scored 30 percent on this test. Here's how I've gone. I know I'm not getting the job. I'm not getting to the next stage because you've just explained how I've gotten this score. So I wonder if just being transparent and honest, and it's a very obvious scoring mechanism, maybe that creates a bit of the trust that otherwise might be lacking.

JAIME: Could be. That could be. I would do the same if I were in that situation to share it with them. Hey, look, this is what you got. This is the situation, right? Like before even making a decision on the application. But I have also seen in the very few times I got the chance to use this test, and the candidate will say I was having a bad day. Can I have another try? If the tool is good, then you can do it again; that's fine. If the tool is not great, then you're doing a test for a test. So the person was already exposed to the test, and they

TIM: Right?

JAIME: for sure.

TIM: Yes. Yes.

JAIME: How much does the person remember about

TIM: Yes.

JAIME: So it's not really purposeful. But yeah, I will definitely share their results and stick to them to some extent.

TIM: What about this? I've had a hypothesis that parts of maybe a lack of interest in what I'd call an objective kind of measurement of candidates within talent circles are partly because the typical backgrounds of people who work in talent acquisition would rarely be hard sciences or data science or software engineering. Is that part of it? Do you think?

JAIME: I do think such a I do think that the background of people, even also in HR, plays a big role in these tools and how fast they accept them themselves. It is the right thing to do and to see or to know from a theoretical or academic point of view. These can be of value for their work and another one, even if they are convinced to then be the selling point for the organization to put that through to explain the business. How this works. Why is this valuable? And yeah, I do believe that qualifications do not always match. If you work in HR, it's not necessarily that you have done psychology. which is usually where you come with this kind of assessment. We probably have done administration of law or something similar. So you're not even familiar with the concept.

TIM: What about thinking more broadly about how to make hiring more objective? So we could talk about, yeah, having some kind of test involved. Any other ways you think about how to make hiring fairer and more objective?

JAIME: Several ways that you do. I think. Bias from individuals always comes across as a problem. There was a director of engineering in my previous organization several years ago. I worked with him, and he had a great point of view on this matter, which will always be there. You just have to know yours. You can overcome them. And I think that's the right way to put it. Like, you need to know what will be your trigger and what will be your decisive factor; put it that way, and then try to balance it. But you can objectively try to see we are humans. The moment you get humans in the equation, everything becomes subjective. It's just part of life. Gonna, AI is going to fix it. I don't already know. Because if any AI learns from AI for what I say, it tries to please you. And if it tries to please you, then it will try to give you what you want. So at the end of the day, it will be just you, but faster. So there's nothing really different there.

TIM: you made me immediately think then of what my own biases are when it comes to hiring and I can share one specific example. I remember trying to hire a product analyst years ago and for context, this is the last company I worked at and we had a indoor soccer team. At our local university near our office, and we kept losing the grand final every semester. We were just like one good player away from winning. It was so close. And I was reading through hundreds of CVs, and you get the hobby section. So it tells you a little bit about the person. I remember reading that this guy was Brazilian. I like Brazilians. I'm just going to be honest. And he was a semi-professional footballer as well.

JAIME: All right.

TIM: So I showed his CV to my colleagues sitting next to me like, Oh wow, look at this guy, it looks amazing. He got an interview for that role. Definitely, at least partly because he was Brazilian and played football, which is so unfair, right?

JAIME: at least it didn't go that far. To be a full hire from

TIM: no,

JAIME: instance. But these things happen. These things happen. X, Y, Z, Web, University, X, Y, Z. And I also went to university. I don't know. You have, you try to, to connect the dots and then try to find what you think is best. And what things are best probably is biased by your own experience. Maybe try to do that with a football player like Mr. Barnes in the Simpsons with the baseball team. Get the best ones for your own.

TIM: What about you? Is there any particular bias you've picked up on from yourself over the years with which you're like, Oh, I always tend to gravitate towards this kind of person. So I'm going to have to reel that back in a little bit.

JAIME: I think my biggest bias that I try to avoid is like messy CVs. It's like something like, if I see someone like, I don't know, full of colors or like something like that. And then I have to say, Okay. It's not about you. It's about a person really twice, and so on. So maybe they get even more attention. So it's twice about you, for I think the largest one for me. Other than that, I don't know, trying to be a bit varied when everything, or think twice, what did they think, what did they say, what, and then try to balance it the other way around. So I tried to give as much as I could for a chance to, to everyone.

TIM: Yeah, thinking about it now, God, I rejected a lot of CVs that had typos and spelling errors. If I saw one or two of those, ah, low attention to detail, maybe there's something to that. Like maybe this, yeah, some logic, but still probably quite unfair. JAIME: I had a hiding money, who a CV was not a PDF, was not, was a no-go, and it's not really, it's not what really matters, it's not something that everyone knows or likes or anything.

TIM: Yes.

JAIME: I think these kinds of things you have to be aware of yourself that can be a trigger. Oh, look, one that I really have is like when they put their names in capital letters because the ATS reads the capital letters, and then I have to change the name by myself. So I'm already like, Gosh, more time than I want.

TIM: Yeah. I remember actually an experiment we did years ago at Aluba where we got, I think, five or six hundred resumes that we'd gotten for one of our open roles, and we wanted to do a little bit of an experiment to try to understand how subjective resume screening was. Got this set of resumes and gave them to eight different freelance recruiters that we hired, all independent of each other. They didn't know each other. We didn't tell them they're an experiment, so it's maybe a little bit unethical, but still it was interesting. And we just asked them, Here's the resumes, here's the job description, and shortlist who you think we should interview. And they all came back with different answers. There was not even close. There was, I think, only one candidate that more than two of them picked. It was almost like flipping a coin, and behind the scenes, we also had these candidates test scores from our platform, which we didn't share. And again, there was almost like a negative correlation between who they picked and how well they'd actually done on a test. So this just sounds like this doesn't surprise you at all.

JAIME: No, I was thinking of what you were saying, that when I was studying for my master's at Kingston University, London, one of the lecturers introduced us to an experiment, and then we also did a test with the experiment. And there were like four CCBs, right? And four groups, four CCBs. And of the CVS was how to, how, trying to remember. So it was like, it was the same CV all the time with the same content. with a female and a male name and a female with masculine perfume and a male with feminine perfume and a female with feminine perfume and a male with masculine perfume. Okay, those combinations were there. Then the experiment was like, Okay, how would you recommend these for job X? I think it was customer service; the trial we did and the real one were, I don't know. Mechanical or know, assistant in the parking space or something like that. I used to remember your previous example, right? And the experiment was like the masculine perfume; the masculine name was the most suitable candidate. And then the standing into feminine name, masculine perfume. Like descending this way. And then I was the other way around, like a feminine person, feminine name. It was up and then descending towards masculine, masculine. So these things happen to everyone. I can tell you, I've seen it in life, and there's documentation about it that we all have bias for whatever reason. Yeah.

TIM: Yes. And I've seen a lot of experiments done at scale to really ram this home, especially investigating bias against particular ethnic groups. So there was one in Australia only three years ago that the University of Sydney did where they got tens of thousands of CVs Put them into three buckets first bucket had CVs that had a anglo saxon first and last name second group had anglo saxon first name chinese last name third group had chinese first and last names And then they applied to thousands of different jobs And then measured their callback rate and long story short If you have a Chinese name and you apply for a job in Australia, your chance of a callback is only one third as high as someone with an England name, which is so unfair, that's disgraceful, basically,

JAIME: That's what I'm trying to say. Like the bias exists, you just have to be conscious about it. You just try to embrace them and overcome them. It's the only way. But don't ever believe that there is objectiveness all the time everywhere because it's not the case.

TIM: there is not, and I think maybe AI could be one way to solve it if implemented correctly, as you say, not just as a way to magnify your own biases and have a thousand Tim's out there screening CVs in the same stupid way. But yeah, how do you feel? About the prospect of AI making things fairer,

JAIME: I think it's great. I think is a massive time saver is a great solution creator. All in with it, honestly, there's no way back and there's no way around, I'm afraid, so we just have to embrace it again.

TIM: You can't hold back the ocean, that's for sure. Have you started to dabble in any AI hiring tools yourself?

JAIME: Yeah, when we, early days, we're talking about like almost two years ago, when the first note taker came in, I already got it into a team, it's something we cannot really live without. The day is down, it's like a catastrophe. It's no one wants to call anyone. So yeah that, that was a game changer. And then generative generative AI for, for content creation when it comes about job ads or posting any kind of message or any channel or even reviewing emails, creating templates, things like that, it's just so much easier, so much better on a glimpse. did try another, I did try another video creation, for example for websites and for onboardings, for guidelines, explanations. I did some good progress, but it's just a bit more marginal, to be honest, than the actual talent acquisition a bit. But note takers and generative AI, it works like a charm.

TIM: So for the people listening who don't currently use an AI note taker for their meetings, either for interviews or other kinds of meetings, what is the difference now? Because it sounds like it's night and day for your team.

JAIME: Yeah, we, it's just a time saver, and it's the quality of the notes. We are moving from, I don't know, you just grasp some ideas, you put them down into your notes, and now it's like a complete text with every single thing that has been said. You can go back to them, you can ask questions to the tool, and it will give you the answers you need. You can go back any time that you need to, I don't know, two months into the recruitment process to find what was said here and there. The amount of time you spend both reviewing notes after writing them and submitting them. Just do it in one click. It's just so much better.

TIM: Yeah, I remember doing research maybe two and a bit years ago for an interview product we were building, and I was interviewing interviewers about how they interview. If I can say interview another time in a sentence. And I was amazed; I think something like 25 percent took notes with a paper and pen. It was only a couple of years ago. Where have those notes gone? That's not useful for anyone at all. So if AI note taker Oh, it doesn't do it perfectly. It's not the perfect transcript. So what?

JAIME: No. Then, poof, I met so many people who did paper notes, like so many people. It's like a, sometimes there's like a step. They start with the paper notes; the thing is easier, and then they go to transcribe while they are listening, and yeah, they do it with a Word document maybe, and then they are in the proper platforms.

TIM: It's progress.

JAIME: to them, to the note taker, which is just simply much, much better. What can we

TIM: Yeah, especially in an interview, because part of the challenge is if you're trying to take notes, how can you take notes, listen to the candidate and what they're saying, figure out what you're going to ask next, judge their body language, and evaluate them? Like, what human can do all of those things perfectly? It's ridiculous.

JAIME: Guys, I agree with you on that. And there is also the bit of. There are some candidates who joined the conversation like you told them in advance, but they still ask you anyway. And then what's this for? How does it come?

TIM: Yep.

JAIME: I think it's better for you because this guarantees that I'm not going to miss a single thing that you're

TIM: Yes.

JAIME: I'm not gonna, it's not going to be my judgment. It's going to be a neutral of your own evaluation of your work. So I

TIM: yes.

JAIME: it's just

TIM: Yeah, I agree. And a no brainer. What about in the evaluations there? Have you considered using some kind of, I don't know, CV screening tool or perhaps in interview grading or pre grading their answers to questions or those kinds of things?

JAIME: I. For CB screening. I would say what I've been saying since about I really haven't seen anything that works. If there is something I was told lately that there was a tool that does that tells you that's that's the grading. As you said, it tells you this one is probably the most suitable and then scaling down like was the less suitable. And then, doesn't tell you anymore, like it's just a grading of suitability. I haven't seen anyone that really goes and tell you this is your match, and then rejects itself maybe this unethical probably I don't know, but I would love to I would love to see that Happening. That would be a great advancement and I'll be happy if if the tool gives me scales and gives me grades not only for or even comparing my judgment or telling me asking me what do you think? And then tell me what I do think the other way around. And then try to get an agreement. I'm always happy to get a point of view. I think it's just for everyone.

TIM: What about interviewer feedback? I feel like that's almost interesting untapped, sorry, thing, because surely for at least several years, no matter how quickly AI advances, we still need to do human interviews. And there's a big spectrum of interviewer quality. I wonder if AI listening to the interview with a very clear set of criteria of what good interviewing is, could maybe give that feedback?

JAIME: I do. I just think so. I just think so. Even be worth it for many things, even for training recruiters. If you ask me at some point, like it's a great point to have an aspiring partner and never get tired. You can do interviews for days and yeah, would be great. It would be great. I'm not sure if there's any solution out there already, but I'll be happy to, I'll be happy to.

TIM: I I don't know about you, but I often use AI To get feedback for myself on various things. And my perception is maybe this is just me, but I'm willing to accept its feedback. Probably more easily than I am willing to accept some humans feedback because there's no, it's depersonalized. You know what I mean?

JAIME: Certainly. Yeah. I will. I will also. I don't know when I have to send a message that I'm not I can read already that the tone is not what I want to express. And then I pass it through. I don't know, try to be like, can you soften these? I never, I would never take it back whenever he tells me, it's okay, yeah, fine. You're right. No problem. Yeah, I think it's good for that. Yeah. Help us to improve as humans.

TIM: And what's going to be the challenge then as we start to get into hiring? It's almost human and AI intertwined in the process. What do we need to look out for? Like, where is this going to go in the next couple of years?

JAIME: It's this: I think the sector is contracting more and more. I'm not sure if that's due to economic factors also, because this here in Europe is not, it's not as good as it used to be a couple of years ago, I can tell you that. And three years ago, probably more. Then the solutions come, and they are cheaper than an employee. Are they better? They will keep improving. I think coexisting with them is going to be the key for now. And at some point, there will be two kinds of talent acquisition individuals. One will be the one who interacts with me. And works together with them. Probably AI takes 75 percent of the job in itself, but you have to still like a human to know that everything is running fine. And I still believe that there will be some kind of artisan, old-fashioned talent acquisition person who will do everything, and that will be appreciated for what it is. It's, there are Ferraris and there are Audis; that's okay. They are great cars, but there will still be one that will do everything Artisan has made, and there will be other ones that will be like, Yeah. and still pretty good.

TIM: I assume it would roll out, like AI would be used either more at the top of the funnel first, where there's the higher volume, or in grad roles, where there's just a massive amount of candidates, and then it'll eventually get down maybe the funnel or into more senior roles later on.

JAIME: I do think so, too. That makes sense. I don't think either that a senior person wants to speak with an A. I don't think so. That is the same game with the C.B. Like, it makes sense, but it makes sense for the candies to make sense for the person who receives the C. B. So it is the same for the kind of applicants. I'm sure that entry-level role or graduate, as you said, they will be happy to get a shot and prove themselves. And then you can pick from there. And I don't know. I see level. I don't think that they will apply first. I don't think that they, I will reach it to them, that they will be happy to speak with, I don't think so. I agree with you on that, do you?

TIM: My only counter to that Would be all my sort of devil's advocate to that would be, is it just a matter of time before we're also used to interacting with AI on a day to day basis in every bit of life that then it's of course, I'm going to speak to an AI recruiter. What's really the difference? Especially if there's this uncanny valley where this becomes so similar to humans, it's almost indistinguishable or is indistinguishable.

JAIME: I think that's the key that you the key of it. How good are they going to become mimicking us? And if they become really good and then you don't notice a difference. then you're interacting with them in the supermarket, you're interacting with them, I don't know, in the workshop or whatever. And then, yeah, sure. you will not care because it's just your normal daily basis interactions. But I don't know how far away from that. That's the key of it.

TIM: Yeah that's a good question. I was using. Chachapiti just the other day as a language learning partner. And I was using the voice mode because I was showing it some paper and it was interpreting it and it was still so empathetic. Its voice was so nice. He was so friendly and kind. Oh, thank you. He's keep going. You're doing a great job. Don't be disheartened. Oh, thanks. Yeah. You did such a nice delivery. And I do feel good about myself. Thank you

JAIME: there is still a bit of a lag between the, when you speak and they speak back and,

TIM: a little bit. Yeah.

JAIME: it's still a bit of, they don't really get yet how humans talk over each other and then they think and they reply. If they get that at some point, then yeah, sure, the game is over. I will just do these jobs, I can tell you.

TIM: Yes, and maybe the final normalization is when we have AI partners. The AI robots. I'm not sure if Love Honey is getting into that. I don't know what's on the product roadmap.

JAIME: Now that I have a hair I know that companies do it because obviously that you hear about the sector and then how things are and then there's AI brothels and things like that and I can tell you that things exist Never don't have much information about them. And I don't know if we are working on anything similar to that, but And there's people doing it. I can tell you.

TIM: Yes, from what I can see, the main development is in Japan. I have seen, as always, I guess they're ahead of the game in some ways, but I did see a Deutsche Welle documentary not too long ago, actually. About, yeah, a young guy in Japan who'd married his robot. Not a sex doll, but just a small robot, and he had a wedding ceremony with it. He had a little veil on the robot, and they walked down the aisle, and he was carrying a leek. A leek, the vegetable, I don't know why, but there you go, that was all part of it. So it's a weird problem we're getting into now, so who knows,

JAIME: It is what it is, man. You have to give the customers what they want. I don't know. It's a very different world from where I grew up, but we will see.

TIM: We just have to embrace it, but back to the hiring process, if you had a magic wand, or AI might be that magic wand, like, what would the ideal hiring process look like? What would perfect be?

JAIME: AI to sort and tell me who are the right candidates. I would love to have that candidate or someone from my team call the candidates with a subscriber so we can get everything properly recorded, but speaking with. With a person and then sending them to complete properly standardized tests for personality, general ability, and things like that, AI can probably perfectly do and assist them through the process, because that will also be good for them to have some help through the process. then finally having a conversation with Heidi Mannaier, a senior member of the staff. And I think that would be great. Perfect combination of both worlds. That will work like a charm.

TIM: So the automation with AI, but still the human touch is not going away anytime soon.

JAIME: Not for me, I hope. need to be; I need to pay bills. I hope not, but I cannot promise this is not going to happen.

TIM: And where is the biggest value out of humans in the process? Is it to really evaluate, can this person work in this team? Is it the sort of cultural fit thing? Is it? What is it?

JAIME: From the point of view of the time acquisition, I think it reverts more on the candidate side. The value is the human engagement. Like you have another, Pass on in front of you and that the person who is working there tells you things about the place that cannot be told to you in the standard pitch about what's happening in the place. It will tell you about how it is, and it can tell you a bit more about the truth of what's going on here, or the truth, a subjective truth, which probably we like more when we're talking with other people more than a plain and objective one. And then for hiring teams or for hiring money, I think the contact with a human is better to understand the actual reality of the job and to settle expectations on both sides. I think that's more valuable. Are we going to have robots managed by AI here working and they will be better telling the job and this is a different story. But, right now, this is an actual person who sees on a daily basis how the office is and can tell a bit, can tell a bit more how things are,

TIM: You mentioned telling the truth or the subjective truth. I've always believed that hiring could be way better. If both parties, both sides of the equation were just as brutally honest with each other as early as possible. Do you agree or do you think it should be more of a dance?

JAIME: I think so, I think, but I love the dance, I will not lie to you, it's a bit like I'll tell you a bit, you tell me a bit, and then we roll around, and then you are then you discover some truth and I will also tell you some truth and you will also tell me some truth about how you are and I think that's the way it's like romance, it's the beauty of it, not to tell all the bad things from the beginning. I'm not sure, I'm not sure if it will work, if people will tell, I don't like this, I don't do that, and in six months I'm going to tell you this and I'm going to tell you that, rather than living a bit of mystery, because if you live a bit of mystery, then context change you, and then you evolve with the context as well. Your truth at the moment might not be your truth in six months time. Yeah.

TIM: The company can change you or you could change the company. Maybe if it's small enough and you're big enough.

JAIME: You have to change always. You want something to change around you, you have to change yourself. So you never know. I think you're the truth. What's the truth? That's complicated. The dance is more entertaining. Not sure if AI can do the dance.

TIM: Yeah. My desire for the transparency Maybe it's coming at it from a data nerd perspective where I feel like there's got to be some perfect way Where if you just collected enough data about the candidate and you collected enough data about the job in the company There's some kind of hypothetical perfect matching where it's like we this is the right candidate for this job They've got a 99 percent match, happy days But maybe we're a long off long way off that

JAIME: there is. There is. If you check statistically, what are the that's even the perfect match is the best indicators of future job performance. It will be generally intelligence, consciousness and emotional stability. That's three

TIM: right

JAIME: And the best situation can tell you 60 something percent of future job performance. That's what they can number for you. And there's nothing better. It's minimal. It's like a 2 percent or something like case. And every other is point something.

TIM: Yes

JAIME: Is there a warning you can really do this is a perfect match, this is a perfect employee? I don't really know. Many people have been trying for a long time. If you can unveil the truth, that would be great. You will break the mystery for everyone.

TIM: You mentioned there that what I would have thought is, yeah, what should be reasonably well-known science of what actually predicts job performance, which you've just laid out. And you've also laid out the things that don't predict job performance that much, which are the things we actually use. Why is it so backwards? I don't understand. In practice,

JAIME: Of people. It's just what people expect you to believe. If it's what I tell you, if you dislike, you do this test of general intelligence, and then you do a Big Five.

TIM: big five personality.

JAIME: And then you get consciousness, and then you get the emotional stability, and then you can predict percent, and there's nothing else. Nothing else can be even close to that. The closest next one to it is proof of past work, something like that. Most people don't even have or will never be able to show you because it's patterns or things like that. So you have this three, and you tell people they even have to send me a CB. I don't need that. So you just do this test. And the ones who get the highest marks, then you get the job. That would be the fairest thing I've ever known. And statistically speaking, it would work better than anything else. But, yeah, we still rely on that. Probably what I told you before about context. Context has a toll on everything. Yeah, you have that, and then you have this prediction of this 60%. The other 40 percent is what happens next. And when the person comes in, they like the people, they interact with people, and it's like thinking about the colonization of Mars. We are not there because we don't bear each other after a long time. Not for anything else, primarily. It's because we, after some time, just need to argue, fight, and enter a war. Know how it's going to be the context when you put people together. Yeah.

TIM: A risk aversion thing. So if you're a hiring manager and you've got a choice of interviewing someone four times or zero times, at least if you interview them four times, you can say, I did the due diligence. I tried my best. They didn't work out. But if you go and hire someone without ever having met them. And they fail, you will probably look like an idiot.

JAIME: yeah. That's right. That's right. Also, like the lack of the need for choosing the need for doing a a choice to pick a choice, then that's also a problem. Like people hesitate about it. Like it depends. It takes some time to be sure what you're going to do. And then first is what you say, which is like perception of the others about your selection. And then is actual effects of your selection, which is cause. Probably associated with your team and things like that. So I can understand yet. Still, if you have done these three tests, then you will be sure that is the right choice

TIM: It's a weird world in many ways. Jaime, if you could ask our next guest, any question about hiring, what would you ask them?

JAIME: hiring. What do you value the most performance or results?

TIM: And how are you distinguishing performance and results there?

JAIME: Performance is the action that. Lead you to a result, like I'm performing the movement of my arm, but my result is a graph this, right? So choice, if I was to answer that one is for me is my performance is more important because you can modify performance where results are given. You cannot change

TIM: Excellent. It almost reminds me of. The book Atomic Habits and the way the author lays out his philosophy there. Yeah, if you just keep adjusting what you're doing day to day, eventually the results will come. It might take a long time, but it's more about that.

JAIME: results. Results. It's done with nothing. You can go back, but performance, you can your performance and then that leads you to two different results.

TIM: Excellent. I'll ask that question to our next guest sometime next week and see what they say. Jaime, it's been a great conversation. So fun and just relaxing and enjoyable and easy and funny and insightful. You've given us everything today. Thank you so much.

JAIME: For the time I had much fun also. And I hope people enjoy it as well. Yeah, thanks a lot for having me anyway.