Episode 87

Steve Page on Modern Talent Acquisition Strategies in the Era of AI

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

STEVE: Thanks for having me,

TIM: It's absolutely our pleasure. And Steve, it would be great if we could kick things off by getting just a bit of an introduction about yourself so the audience can kind of contextualize what we chat about today.

STEVE: for short. I'm the VP of Digital Strategy here at Giant Partners. I'm also one of the business partners here. I've had plenty of hiring experience and business experience throughout the, I don't know how long it's been. I'm always like in denial of how long I've been in business for—15 years now of marketing and hiring, working with people. It's like time just flies when you're in it, but I'm happy to share any insights I've learned, any processes or tools, and tricks that we've learned along the way. And, as we know, the big topic now is AI stuff and how you incorporate it into not just hiring but every aspect of your business to make things more efficient. Happy to be here and share some insight, if it's valuable to you and your audience.

TIM: Wonderful. Thanks for the intro, and you don't look a day over 25, so you've aged well. And that might be some of the insights you can share with us: how to age gracefully.

STEVE: Happy to do it. Yeah.

TIM: Well, as amazing as AI is, I'd like to start our conversation actually in a slightly different place, which is almost the opposite of AI, which is the CV, a document that is so old. Apparently, Da Vinci was the first creator of a CV nearly 500 or maybe more than 500 years ago now. And I feel like this document's kind of, it's kind of like the email of recruitment. It's just always there somehow, never really being killed off. It's always persisted. But I feel like maybe it's time is finally coming to an end. Just because we see so many candidates using ChatGPT or Claude or what have you to create a CV and kind of optimize it based on the GD. It seems as though, at least anecdotally, the CV is drifting away from reality even further than it has in the past. What do you think about the CV? Should it still have this kind of central position in those early screening stages, or is it time to think about something else?

STEVE: The truth is, when we get a lot of applications, we're not even seeing the cover letter most of the time. A lot of these platforms that you just submit a resume to don't even have room for a cover letter. Depending on the form or what you're using on your website, you could have an attachment where they attach their resume. Sometimes there's a form field to describe what they're looking for, looking to do. I think it's good to have some sort of personal message that talks a little bit about you, who you are. If you can add some personal personalization to it to make yourself unique and stand up, stand out. I think that's beneficial because what we're also seeing is a lot of people who have the same experience on their resume, and then you're just figuring out who has those other skills, who's really motivated, who loves to solve, like problem-solve, who loves to do this, where all those little intangibles you can't really tell on a resume when it just says five years of copywriting experience or three years of Google ads. That's very standard. Someone with five or seven years of Google ad experience, for example, like sometimes a person with five might be better just because they've done it the right way, or they've done it in a more modern way. That's new. And the person that's done for too long is stuck in their ways. So I think the cover letter or even just some sort of personalized message is a good thing. And I bet there are tools now where you can detect AI. There's more, like tools that could detect AI copy. But if you can spin it in a way, show that you actually maybe looked at the website, saw what they did, and watched some videos of what they do. The same thing with some of the email marketing approaches, email approaches, when you're messaging anybody, it has to be more personalized than ever. Otherwise it's going to get lost in the noise. So if you actually show the extra effort. To mention something, that person was in a video or an interview. They went to some event recently, being like, Oh, that's great. You guys went to X event in Miami last month. I saw this interview with the speaker. Hope you guys did really well there and look forward to maybe being involved in it someday. So it showed that you actually cared and did a little due diligence for the potential company you wanted to work with.

TIM: And what about the resume as well? Like, is it in the same campus, the cover letter, if it's being generated with AI, if it's like, from what I understand, a candidate saying, Hey, like, here's this job description, optimize my resume for this JD, make it like a perfect match. Where is that going to leave us? If all these candidates are applying with these kind of slightly bullshitted, perfect looking resumes.

STEVE: Right. Yeah, I think the same thing is going to happen where I don't think you can lie about your experience in a year. It's like someone could check it, but people, I bet, do because some people might not actually—the person that's hiring may not do their due diligence and check every candidate, especially if you get hundreds of resumes. Like, that would take a lot of time for them to actually check each person's. LinkedIn profile or where they went to school and then do the math or say what those graduated in 2010. And they said this, and then it's like they said that 20 years of experience doesn't make sense. They're only like 19 years old. This is so Yeah, I think the same thing is happening in resumes where it's becoming So it's been very cookie-cutter. So even like making your resume a little different I think it's helpful even for the look and feel of it potentially, and I think that can apply to certain roles. So, a creative role, if you like, add some creativity to your resume. But like, it's still easily digestible. That's one thing. Going too far and making it so crazy that you can't read it. Like using Comic Sans or like Papyrus font or something like that. . But as it makes it super annoying to read, then I wouldn't recommend doing that. But again, if you could add some personalized spin to it, that could be helpful just to. Stand out a little more than that again, like if you're just doing the same boilerplate resume and getting it outputted by ChatGPT, you're just going to be like, Okay, what's the difference? We interviewed all of them. Then you're looking for that. Like a diamond in the rough, like what they said, or we noticed this in the resume, like it just, it puts more work on the person hiring. If it's all the same.

TIM: Yeah, I feel like. Candidates are probably doing themselves a disservice at the moment if they're just going to use the same tool that everyone else is using because, inevitably, they're going to fall into that sea with everyone else rather than standing out, which is what they'd want to do. In your experience, is there, I don't know, any kind of aggressively un-ChatGPT types of words or language? Or things that ChatGPT-ish doesn't do that, as a human, you could do on, let's say, a resume that would allow you to stand out, like, is there still some gap there, do you think?

STEVE: Yeah. So we've been using things like ChatGPT and copywriting tools for. Two, three years now. And it favors a lot of words. Like you see the same words come up a lot and a lot, like unleash, unlock,

TIM: Realm. They love the realm.

STEVE: Yeah. Realm, like it's almost like to. To professional to like we use, this is the top word in a resume. We're going to use this word, and this is the best resume. And then all of a sudden that's the output for every resume they do. And everyone's using the word on lock. Like everyone's unlocked, like the key to their business. So it's obvious that it's just like all people are just generating AI resumes. But just being able to like. Add even, like, the formatting or some sort of language that's more casual, more like your tone. But again, you could even tailor ChatGPT to fit your tone better or these AI tools. You can upload yourself talking or speaking in interviews or everything like that. You can somehow personalize it to your language, and that could hopefully make your output better even if you're going to use these AI tools. And again, you can always tell the AI tools to be more edgy, more personal, be funny, be quick-witted, and it'll, it'll output some things to like use. And that's more like off the rails for a GPT AI program. But then at least it's extra effort. And you're like putting in the time versus just throwing in your experience and then having it output some resume and then you paste it in without doing a little bit of tweaking to it.

TIM: What about if you were a candidate yourself these days, and you were facing these hiring conditions where candidates are probably looking at LinkedIn going, Oh wow, there's been a thousand applicants in a day. That's a lot of competition, and I can see how they're then going down this more kind of volume-based approach where it's like, Why? I now realize I need to apply to like 10 times as many jobs as I used to because there are so many applicants per job. So they're probably using Chachapiti, kind of applying en masse. If you're in these market conditions now, would you keep applying through traditional job boards? Would you kind of fight it out by trying to, you know, creatively adjust your CV and make it stand out, or would you try some other method to get a role? Do you think?

STEVE: I'm going to try the beginning of any of the companies I really wanted to work for or potentially get seriously considered for whatever role I'm applying for, pick a handful of them, and then whatever their instructions are, make sure you follow them. Like one thing that we've done a few times is mention a thing in the job application or reply, add this in your resume, or add this in your cover letter so we can make sure they added some detail on the subject line or something or a word so we could even just filter out who even read the whole resume versus the bots kind of thing. And maybe those tools even detect that now. And then just put in the extra effort of adding some details about yourself and then also putting in the time to personalize the content about the company while you want to work there. And then I know it's sometimes a faux pas, sometimes it isn't. Depends who, who's the hiring person, but like connecting with that person, sending them a message on LinkedIn, maybe if their email address, like sending them a quick message. I've even gotten a thank-you card either after a resume or even just an interview, maybe an interview. I can't remember which one, but like a physical thank-you card was sent to me one time. And it's like this person just takes time. That takes effort. That's just like a good quality to put out there in general to anyone hiring for any job. You're going to go above, like not even above and beyond, but you're just doing something a little extra that other person doesn't take the time to do. And that just again, you're sticking out like a needle in a haystack. It just gives you an extra shot. I don't know how useful that is anymore. I assume it's not used a ton, but some of those physical items like that, which take a little extra time and a little manpower, can set you out just to give you the opportunity to get an interview. Because, like, I've When I wasn't even like the boss or the owner, one time the guy got that card, and then he was like, Oh, I got this card from someone that, like, saw you at the career fair. It's Oh, let's bring them in. That's worth it. It's just the thought that counts and that little extra effort to just give you a shot, put you in the running, versus you may not even get a chance to get an interview.

TIM: If you think back to when you received that thank you card from that interviewee, this is after you'd interviewed them. Is that right? How did that make you feel? Do you feel like that changed your ultimate hiring decision at all? Yeah. How did you perceive receiving that?

STEVE: At first, it was like a surprise. I like that someone actually took the time to do that. We actually ended up hiring the person too, and he was a good employee for a long time. But, at first, it catches you off guard, because you don't expect it. And then, you're like, wow, this guy actually wrote a thank-you card and put it in the mail. Like, all those things are things I personally hate doing. And it sucks if you actually mail it; put it in his mailbox, not a big deal. But that's just the extra step that you realize not everyone's going to take. And that's the kind of. Attitude you'd want to have for someone that if you're going to ask them to do something and they like to do something a little extra that's in them. It's, Hey, you want to send us a card? Like, you put that extra effort in; you'd hope that translates to the actual work ethic of the person, and like you, it's just a good correlation between the two; you'd hope.

TIM: Yeah, it's a nice, a nice, sorry, tactful way to stand out. I think it's a good one. And especially because in this day and age, yeah, there's not a lot of physical mail going on anymore. Everyone's communicating digitally. So it stands out even more. And I feel like there's a lot of parallels between people doing sales outreach or marketing and what you might apply to your desire to get a job. Because the same kind of channels that are very noisy and very busy trying to sell a product are the same channels that are noisy and busy for trying to get a job in some ways. I don't know; certainly over the past couple of years we've experimented with kind of physical things, going to an office rather than just bombarding someone's inbox, which is already so flooded. And it is at least, if nothing else, a way to stand out if you can do it kind of carefully.

STEVE: Yeah, we had a software platform send us our logo, and like a puzzle, like a framed puzzle, one time. Not only did we end up working with them, but like, obviously, we all got it and saw it. You're not going to, can't really avoid that kind of thing. But yeah, we've seen it a handful of times with certain companies, and if the potential opportunity is big enough, like, it's definitely worth it. And when you compare it to some of the advertising channels that are still expensive, like it's still not a it's relatively expensive depending on how much your budget is, but. Based on getting seen by certain opportunities and certain companies and certain people, that could be your best shot and your best use of some of your marketing spend sometimes.

TIM: And then back to, yeah, if you were a candidate in this current market applying, would you consider just kind of backdooring it and just avoiding the job ads completely? Would you try to be like leveraging your network? Would you go directly to the hiring managers without really bothering about the formal application process? Would you do that? And how would you navigate that?

STEVE: Yeah, I do know, like when you put up a job post on LinkedIn, for example, you'll get tons of notifications through LinkedIn or like Indeed. But if you actually look the person up and maybe find their email or find their LinkedIn or find there's some sort of contact information to send them, this is my personal information, and maybe even let them know you submitted your resume on LinkedIn just to give them the extra perk because, again, like most people probably aren't actually looking up the hiring manager person if it's even there, or you could even find people you potentially even be working with potentially and message them something about, Hey, I love your company. I love what you've been doing on the marketing side. Like this ad, this video, I saw this running has been doing really well. I'm applying for this job. I'd love to eventually work with you guys; you are so talented and like really massage their ego or something like that. And be impressed by, like, certain specific things. Because again, that goes a long way. Everyone likes to be rewarded and feel good about the work they're doing wherever it's fun, especially sometimes from a stranger you haven't met before. And you're getting some compliments out of the blue. That's always nice. And then that person potentially could check in and be like, Hey, have you talked to the Steve guy? And be like, He like went through all our ads and created like an analysis of what he thinks has been working and what you can tweak about it. Like, that's a great initiative. Like, I love to just bring them in for conversation.

TIM: Yeah, exactly. And I feel like the nuance here is you could deliver something of value. It's kind of genuine as opposed to, you know, just mass bombing people on LinkedIn with a generic CV, a generic message that isn't tailored, that has got three spelling errors in it. where you're applying to a job you have no experience in. So there's a spectrum of, like, how well you could approach this from pretty dreadful to, oh, actually quite good and quite helpful. And you could stand out quite easily from the crowd, I think.

STEVE: Yeah. And I think it's similar to marketing, where there's a cycle of everyone using one thing and it's working. So everyone starts jumping on the bandwagon, and then all of a sudden, like the thing no one else is doing anymore, let's say direct mail. That starts becoming like the blue ocean where no one's doing it like a mail piece anymore, like a postcard or a a mailer, and then you're getting people that like the owner of the CEO or the head of HR is actually checking their mail all the time, and they get something physical that they can touch and see and read. That's probably going to be a better route for you to get in there versus just being caught in the noise with all these other channels, especially email, for example.

TIM: Yeah, a hundred percent. And so for these candidates then so they can be, yeah, trying to stand out from the crowd, either through. kind of tweaking their resume, making their cover letter more relevant for the role, doing a bit, a little bit extra, doing some research, and then kind of backchanneling it as a possibility if it's done tactfully through maybe LinkedIn or through email. When have you, when have you seen this backfire? Have you ever been on the receiving end of some kind of cold approaches that were just a bit too much that you thought, Oh, like I'm now not going to hire this person because of their approach"? Like, it was almost so bad that it's done them a disservice. They would have been better off doing nothing. Is it ever gone? Has anyone ever gone kind of too far the other way?

STEVE: So if they ask, like, and they try to jump ahead with certain questions, potentially, can they give any specific examples? But I'm just thinking in general, someone like applied for a job and then asked about it, Oh, can I get extra vacation time or something like that? If I apply for this job, something like that, where it's just you're not even being considered yet when you're asking for more things already. Or can I get a free lap? Can I get a laptop with this? I can't pay for my laptop. If I start working with you, something like that. And you're just putting me off, just all about like me, and that's why I haven't experienced this yet, but I hear. Just in podcasts and information out there, the people who are looking for jobs are almost like entitled and are like, You should be like selling me on your company. And I'm a one-of-a-kind person you want to work with. So I want to have all these demands to work for you, versus they also don't realize, like, you're especially into remote work. I know a lot of companies are going in person, but once you open, when remote work opened up, you opened the competition gates to the whole world, not just your 10- or 15-mile radius around your office; your competition pools way wider. And the people that are skilled, just as skilled or more skilled as the person that's local to your offices. So you are trying to still sell yourself to the company, and you may think you're Slice cool, slice bread, or whatever, like that kind of thing. And like your ass, shit doesn't stink kind of thing. But we'll find someone else. There's a lot of people in that pool that are good and just as good as you are.

TIM: Yeah, I'm laughing because I suddenly remember something I said as an intern at my first job 14 years ago was the end of the internship with one of the big four consultancies, and we're going for a walk with my mentor. And I remember my exact phrasing was something like, He asked me, Oh, how's the program? How did you find it? I think I said. I was disappointed they didn't wow us. So they didn't wow me in terms of how good the internship was. And he looked at me like, why, why, what, why are you even, why is there even a way you're evaluating? Why, why are we wowing you? What's it got to do anyway? Yeah. So I completely empathize with the current crop of candidates who might also be slightly delusional in their youth about how relatively important they might be. And you're right. The remote work thing just changes the equation completely. Radically. And even for us, we would sometimes get thousands of applicants in a couple of days for a role. So if one is not that interested, it doesn't really matter because we've got another 1999 and

STEVE: Yeah. And that makes it harder on the hiring side, but that's when you try to nail down your processes of weeding out people even before you even evaluate some resumes, ideally. Because you're going to get, when you open up worldwide, you're going to get a ton of automated submissions as well as real submissions, and that's something you have to also weed out as well.

TIM: Yes, exactly. And how then? If you've been hiring remotely, how do you deal with that volume? Like you might have, I'm guessing for your roles, at least hundreds, if not sometimes thousands, of applicants. How do you go from that initial set to deciding who to actually interview?

STEVE: Yeah, so we'll run, we'll make a custom GPT or a model of our ideal candidate. Direct down personality traits, experience, things like that. And then we'll run the resumes through like that custom GPT, whether it's like uploading PDFs or. Or docs and then have it sort through and pick some candidates. It recommends based off of that. And then if anyone sends anything extra, then that's something we will like, take another look at. We don't really get too many of the extra submissions, but we also, I think, it makes it so easy to apply. Like on LinkedIn, for example, you just click a button, and it automatically just applies for you. And I think there might even be automations where you could probably apply to any job of a certain type. So I'm a senior, and I think about seniority in like a seniority skill set. So some of these people might even be super interested, and like, we've reached out to people, and they either don't respond or just say, Oh, they're not interested, or wait for something else. So ideally we want to create a process for that potentially hopeful Insert into their reply so we could filter those people out and then see if we can potentially have them either answer questions. Either about specifically the role in their experience If we could get them to do a video just like introducing themselves so we can see what their personality is, how well they can speak, and how their communication skills are, and then after that they move forward with the interview process.

TIM: You reminded me of a little trick we used to use, or still do, actually, when hiring freelancers on Upwork or Freelancer.com, a platform like that, because a similar kind of issue, you just get bombed immediately with a very large number of applications. Including many that are automatically generated, which then means, yeah, there's like, not a lot of effort for the person to go into it. They don't have any skin in the game, really, if they've automatically applied. We used to put one sentence in there, you know, in your application, putting the capital of France in all capitals backwards. And so it's amazing because for a lot of the roles we hired for, attention to detail was of paramount importance. So They don't know the capital of France, don't know what capital letters are, and can't write it backwards or didn't read it at all. They would all be very big red flags. That would be just a perfect screener. I thought to filter out candidates. What, what, what do you guys put in, in the job? Like, what are you asking them to include in their CV in particular?

STEVE: Oh, we'll put, like, include data in your subject line or even something outrageous, like banana in all caps, like in the top of your application, just to make it so easy as it doesn't show up in the resume. So just do a filter in your email potentially and just like all the ones that have banana in it. Yeah. I'll show up unless they look like they work for Banana Republic or something like that. That might get picked up, but all it takes is just some phrase or word that's going to stick out. It makes it easy for you to filter. That just helps a lot with Not only are you right about the attention to detail of people, but also about the hiring side. Especially with these applicable job websites and boards that make it so easy to apply. That you can't really tell who the real candidates are, or the ones that are even serious.

TIM: Yeah, I think it's, yeah, the easy apply on LinkedIn where it's pretty much one click. I think it's one click, maybe two clicks. But then seemingly some automation tools that are sitting in between would include not only the hey, optimize my resume for this job, but also fill in this application form and apply en masse. And I feel like that has to be one of the other reasons behind it. This massive volume of applicants, probably along with the macro conditions, may be a combination of those things. But then, yeah, it means that so many of those applicants probably can't even remember applying. Maybe they didn't even apply themselves. So it's like, well, what is this job you're telling me about? And so the anecdotal feedback we're getting is that a lot of employers are shortlisting CVs. Reaching out to those candidates, and then quite a lot of them are dropping off even at that point because they're like, Oh, what is this job you've been talking about? Have you noticed that yourselves, like if you almost like a lack of engagement in those early stages from candidates as well?

STEVE: Yeah, we're noticing not only a lack of engagement, but the person doesn't even have the right experience for the job they're applying for. Like a digital marketing specialist, for example, will get, like, a junior designer resume or something like that. Because it's like a digital designer; that's like what they want. And it just has that one word, and they apply en masse. And so there's some of the resumes we get that aren't really applicable to the job, and then the same thing for our Desjardins people: they should have paid ad experience, where we get a lot of people that just do organic posting and organic marketing and posting. That's another issue with the en masse submissions, that they, the resumes, just auto-apply, and they're not even relevant. That's just, this is more junk to comb through again and just a waste of time.

TIM: Yeah, it's a tricky thing because I feel like, on balance, it's better that we have these open job platforms where anyone can apply. And in theory, anyone has a chance of getting an interview. That's much better than having this very guarded ski where it's like, well, you can only get a job if you know someone or your brother is in the company or whatever, like cronyism. But I could easily see how we might, at least in this current period where AI is taking over and there's this high volume of applicants, I could see how we might deviate back towards more of a, you know, mates, jobs for the boys kind of vibe where a lot of the roles are behind the scenes and are given to it. Someone's friend or a contact of a contact or what have you, which I feel like would not be a great step in the direction of making a fairer, more equitable, but I could see how that might be where we'll go in the next couple of years, because that at least solves to some level the kind of spam issue, like you're not having to read through the thousand applicants or what have you, or maybe it's just going to be your approach, which is to automate the screening, and then that's how you do it.

STEVE: Yeah, ideally, or we've another route we've gone is we've actually done some, like, manual outreach to people in certain roles. Like we'll do keywords for not only skills, but sometimes like people or like marketing or business names, like thought leaders out there, and see if they follow like the Neil Patels of the world or Moey or just some people that we like and agree with their principles, like Russell Brunson's of the world, and we found people that have followed them. And then also certain tools that we utilize. So if they put the, like, we use HubSpot a lot. If they say they've already worked with HubSpot and, let's say, Asana as project management tools, we can do some outreach for certain roles for certain people, and we'll send direct messages en masse and in a way where. We're asking them, like, do you know anybody in this role that's a perfect fit? And they'll sometimes be like, Oh, I know this person, or they'll be like, Oh, I'm actually interested, and that's been, we've gotten a handful of really good candidates like that. With that, we're actually going after the people in a mass way on LinkedIn to find the best candidates for it.

TIM: And when you're doing that, let's say an outbound approach instead of an inbound one, do you adjust the hiring process as a result? Because it's kind of like you're reaching out to them. Does that then mean the first step has to be a little bit less aggressive? Like you put them straight into an interview or like, yeah. Do you adjust the hiring process at all for outbound versus inbound?

STEVE: A lot of times. So the first objective is just going to reply to something, whether it's a friend or this, and then it's sending them the application. Like, what's the job? And what's some details about it? And then you send them, like, the form or the link, and they will fill it out or just take a look at it, and then they'll respond or not; they'll be like, Oh, I'm interested. Or it's, Oh, I'm happy here. Thanks for the offer kind of thing. But then, one of the next steps too is just to get them to. Introduce themselves. Like, after, experience, like, just maybe if they're going to make a video, just, Hey, how are you doing? I'll tell us a little about yourself, if we can, but if we've done our due diligence and like our targeting really well, usually that'll lead to an interview. The only thing that's been a trip-up is sometimes, like, they don't speak very well, speak very well, like, English on camera or in general, which is hard to tell on LinkedIn. Sometimes we'll do something where, like, a profile in English as a filter is one thing, but that's all. That's only been the hangout where we don't proceed to interview if something like that is the case.

TIM: Yeah, you're right, which doesn't stand out at all on a resume or on LinkedIn. And what about, so back to the kind of inbound flow where you're getting all these resumes, you're using some ChatGPT prompts to do the screening. How do you evaluate them? Does it come up with a score? Does it say pass or fail? Does it give you feedback on the strengths and weaknesses or the criteria you're looking for? Like, what is the kind of output of the GPT you've put together?

STEVE: Usually it'll say something like based on your requirements, what you're looking for, we recommend and then we'll have like reason why they think it's a very good fit and and we'll go and check and then a lot of times depending on how many submissions we get we'll still look through and comb through a handful just to be sure what we're looking at. But that's like the way for us to, especially in the early days, make sure we hone it, hone our prompts, hone our language, and know what we're actually looking for to then get us the ideal candidates. And then what we'll do too is like anyone who's applied and been a really good employee for us will use their resume, use some of the stuff they've said and done as like a, again, like another model or some sort of reference for the GPT to look at. As far as what they've done and what they've said in their resume.

TIM: And would you have Like one prompt for all jobs, or you'd almost have a common set of prompts across jobs and then a specific one per job, like, how would you think about that?

STEVE: It would tweak per role, so like it'd be very similar, but then we'd tweak it for creative versus digital marketing specialist versus web developer versus a CRM specialist. So we'll have, like, our roles and, like, what we think is a good fit for each role. What kind of traits should they have, depending on what the role needs? And we'll just use it at least as like a filtering process just to get us at least some candidates we get to review, and then if those aren't good, we'll just keep digging and going through the other ones. But it just gets us to the next step a lot faster than trying to comb through all of them and waste a bunch of time through tons and tons of resumes.

TIM: And are you optimizing more for, like, removing the noise? And let's say I don't know, 1000 applicants is your goal to reduce that down to 30 you can look at manually, or would you be more concerned with accidentally filtering out a good candidate and you'd rather have more to kind of menu the review and less to knock out, like, is there almost like a trade-off there, do you think?

STEVE: Yeah, maybe try to not make it so specific and not filter out a good candidate. Ideally, if it's just the resume, like we have their list of experience, what we're looking for, like minimally this many years of this and X, Y, Z, and have knowledge of certain systems, it'd be great to have experience in like these ones. So we like, we had to pick our like minimal qualifications and then also a nice, must-haves and nice-to-haves kind of thing. So it's as if they were like, We grew up with HubSpot a lot. Like I said, they already have HubSpot experience. That just makes it really easy if they've used tools like Zapier or Google Tag Manager and more. Like more advanced tools and processes and automations and things that are almost outside of the realm of a day-to-day job of, let's say, a digital marketer or even a content creator. There are some other things they've learned on their own or done on their own. It's like those if they check those boxes of, like, the nice to have more of those, they'll get put in the front, and then we can look through those because then they check more boxes for us versus ones that, like, just have the experience and nice to have. Then again, they could always lie about that stuff if they really wanted to, but it's been pretty good so far, what we've been doing.

TIM: Yeah, I guess with the kind of paranoia I was spoking earlier about all these chachapiti generated CVs, I, I would have thought and hoped it's more of an exaggeration that's taking place rather than complete lies because surely the candidate will eventually, like they're going to get to interview their CV is going to save five years of experience with HubSpot. Like, cool. Tell me about your experience with HubSpot. They're like, What's HubSpot? It's going to, that's going to unravel pretty quickly. So hopefully it's more just, yeah, the AI's, you know, massaging the truth a little bit rather than coming up with complete bullshit. One thing that suddenly struck me while you were describing the process was. You know, if we are going from this method of screening CVS with a human to at least the first pass being done with AI, I wonder if that will change the optimal length of a CV or resume. 'Cause previously it's like, oh, make sure it's no more than two pages. No one wants to read a biography about you. Just keep it succinct. But now AI doesn't have that limitation. It could ingest one page. and a thousand pages. Doesn't really matter. Would having a slightly longer, more elaborated resume now be to your advantage because you've got a better chance to demonstrate your experience to then match more against a job ad? Because maybe the first screen is now going to be done more by AI. Do you reckon?

STEVE: Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point. Because fewer and fewer people are manually just coming through these resumes and cover letters. And I always thought it was like really hard to squeeze in, especially if you want someone that's experienced, and they just show like the last, I guess like show like the last year what they've been doing. And sometimes, depending on the role, your last job could have been your first or last career company; you could have had four or five jobs within it, worked 10 years, moved up, and changed roles. That one company is going to be like a paragraph or three, four paragraphs in itself, so I think having something that's 2 pages is fine. Like, I don't think it has to be drilled down to one page. And if you can explain some of the things, like I've noticed some people putting in, like, specific numbers The results they've done. When I started, we would get X amount of leads per month. And then based on some of the campaigns and channels we did, now we're getting 10,000 leads a month. Like, the cost per lead has continued to decline, and we've grown this much. So having those specifics really, I think, helps in showcasing that, like, not just being like, I was a key component of our marketing team, and I had strong leadership qualities at this place. Having those specifics, I think, is really helpful, and if you get to do it in more pages and you can mention those more, and that gives you an opportunity to do that, I think it's, it'll just help you more than hurt you.

TIM: Yeah, for sure. Because I feel like it not only says something that is provable or disprovable, like you've quoted an actual number rather than. a waffly description. It also almost speaks to your mindset if you are outcome-driven, results-focused, or whatever you want to call it. Like, if your CV also speaks to that, and that's a key bit of the job, that's going to resonate, I think, on two different levels, at least. It just makes it all more believable, I think, as well.

STEVE: Yeah, and it gives you like a detailed question to ask about, like, on the resume. It's, oh, can you talk more about this? Can you like walk me through our process, like how you achieve these results? You get more detail about that versus just your general experience on something where you can ask a specific question on. actual detailed thing that you did versus just a general concept of how you think you were at the company?

TIM: It strikes me again, thinking about it now, like if I were to sit down and write a CV, which I have not done for six years, it would require quite a lot of almost meditation on what I've done, why I did it, and what I contributed. And I was speaking to someone recently who almost goes through this in their onboarding process. Once they've hired someone, they sit down and really drill into, like, what were the projects you did that you liked? Why did you like them? What resonated about it? What was it about this thing? So they do that once they've gotten them in the door, but it would almost be helpful for candidates to do that before they apply because that could then help you figure out what jobs you want to apply for in the first place. Like, if you sit down and really think concretely about what you've done, it could help make that search process better. And then once you're in that interview, also answer the interview questions better. Like, if you've got almost your history at the forefront of your mind. As opposed to some vague thing that's just sitting in the background. I can't really remember what I was doing eight years ago because it's so long ago. I feel like having that down on paper and articulated would help a lot in the job search.

STEVE: Yeah, I agree with you. I have someone ask me in the last six years here, like your specific campaigns and results. I'd have to look back and be like, yeah, the first year we were here, we did this for this company. Then the next year we did this cool thing. And then I feel like I can make a laundry list in my head, whereas if I were asked that in an interview, I would have to think about it and take time, and then hopefully. Pick the right project or pick the right thing that I want to talk about versus being, like you said, prepared and going through that list beforehand. And it would be super helpful if it were on your resume already. So, like those little bullet points, those notes are almost ingrained in you. Oh yeah, exactly. Like, I remember that I could talk about that specific client or specific result or project I was on. Let me tell you about it.

TIM: Yeah, you need those insights in your RAM, not your hard disk, I guess, to put it in computer terms.

STEVE: I don't want to go back in, like the backup storage, to go find something and be like, I'm still looking for it. It's just, hold on a second. I forgot what I titled it.

TIM: Yeah.

STEVE: It just says screenshot like 10, 15.

TIM: Yeah, that's not going to resonate. One thing I've heard a lot recently from people is how important adaptability is when we have technology. It's moving so quickly, so fast. That's almost more important than just learning the XYZ tool because the tools are changing all the time. What do you think of that mindset? Should adaptability and the ability to learn be at the top of what you're looking for in a candidate or not? If so, do you have any thoughts about how to evaluate that at any stage of the hiring process?

STEVE: So I'm like, continuous, like being a lifelong learner, I think, is a big trait, especially now, not even just in work, but like in your real life, like you met, I'm not sure if you have a father, mother-in-law, or even your parents, and you're like, Hey, you want to? I'd love to listen to music. You can actually tell Siri to just play a song that you like. They're like, That sounds like a lot of work. I'm just like, oh, it's so easy. But if you don't have that lifelong mindset, everything's going to be so hard for you. Like whether it's in your job or in life. So having that skill set, I think, will make it easier for the team you're working with. If you ask that person a question Oh hey, there's this new tool called ChatGPT or whatever; just play around with it. See what it can do for a designer, like some design ideas. Come up with some design ideas for this client next time you come to a meeting; see what it comes up with. And if that person doesn't even try or log in and there's, oh, it was too hard or even asks a question, Hey, can you help me figure out, like, what to say? Or even create an account on this? That'll just tell you a lot about a person. And that's something in the resume that you can see where. Based on the years they've worked, like some of the things, like, are they adding, like, new certifications or new trainings they go through, like watching videos, taking classes and courses, and staying up to date? Like I always ask, what podcasts do you listen to? What news or newsletters do you follow? What people do you follow on LinkedIn or Instagram for ideas or just keeping up with trends? I always ask that with people just to see. If they are listening to that stuff or following that stuff, just to see they're externally motivated, just to put the extra time in or just play it in the background while you're doing like washing dishes or at the gym or whatever, that's not like my, I do, but I don't expect it to everyone, just, it's not mandatory, but I always encourage people, I'll share links to videos and podcasts and articles, same with some people on my team too. And I'm always like, Oh, wow. They're actually. Keeping in touch with the times and the changes and the trends And the new features coming out, like, I'm super happy when I see that.

TIM: Yeah, you've got to embrace the discomfort of learning something new. I noticed myself having recently picked up a guitar for the first time in my life, and it is bloody hard when you've never played any instrument; you're like, Oh my God, how is this even possible? How do you put your fingers in these positions? But you just have to, yeah, embrace the suck. I don't know. It's something like that.

STEVE: Oh, yeah, I totally get it. I had one of those video games where you got a real guitar doing it. I think I played it one time and then never played it again. It was, like, too hard. My daughter is going through that right now playing some games on her iPad. Learning to lose and learning to get better And she's getting so mad. Like she can't advance the level. She's, it's not fair. I can't beat it. I can't; I haven't been playing for 20 minutes. I can't get past this level. I was just like, That's he's going to learn and get better. Try it again. Like, figure it out. And then that's where I hear more and more, like playing video games or just even games, just gives you an extra, like, you have to learn, you have to adapt, you have to get better. You have to level up. It's just a skill, and it shows a little bit of that external drive to get better. It's just another thing for you to get better at. And if you can't get better, that's great. It shows correlation to certain cognitive abilities. I'm not saying that's something you put on your resume, like I love playing video games, but that's all; that could be something you maybe could bond Over while in an interview, if the other person interviewing you plays games and they play a certain game, you talk about this, and they wouldn't like it if they have that same mindset of, Oh, gamers have XYZ, and this person has reached this level of this, and it shows that she's like a hard worker in that aspect of her life, you'd think, like, in her job, she'd have potentially, you'd think, Similar motivations don't always match up, but the same thing with sports or the same thing with other kinds of team-oriented things where you'll find people who have, like, more discipline, more adaptability, or more of the right attitude to solve problems and overcome challenges. Because they've already been through it in other aspects of their life.

TIM: Steve, as a final question today. What question would you ask our next guest about hiring if you could talk to them?

STEVE: One thing I would ask your next guest is if they've really cracked the code on some sort of automated intake flow of applicants. I've heard, I haven't, we haven't implemented this all the way through; let's say it's equivalent to a customer journey in marketing. It's almost like the applicant journey is from the resume to the candidate you want to actually get on the phone or a Zoom call with. I've heard of submitting a form, having AI or something digest the resume, and filtering between those must-haves and nice-to-haves. And that sends that person an email for them to submit some video recordings about their experience and their job, who they are personality-wise. And then somehow we can digest that and filter out people that said the right thing or have the right traits on that and then go to the next step. And then that lands in Let's say you have a Trello board or a Google sheet, and you're like, all you have to do is look at that, and they've already gone through a few steps and just show up in a sheet automatically that you can comb through, because that could be something perpetually that could just go—you could have a job perpetually out there and spend a few bucks a month promoting it. And just keep getting candidates just dripping in because the hardest part in certain industries is if you get an influx of clients or all of a sudden a busy month, it's like really hard to, like, just all of a sudden hire someone, and you're in a rush. But if you already have a list of people you've already qualified and you can maybe speak to for a little bit, you don't want to just drag it out and be like, Hey, we're not hiring right now, but keep in mind if something comes up. But. If you at least have some sort of list of filtered candidates automatically, some way, and you leave running, it's like that person built that, and they have a list of candidates that show up on a sheet or something. I'd love for that person to share it with us.

TIM: Wonderful. Yeah, I'll level that at our next guest. And I wonder if products like this are probably being built at the moment. I imagine they are. So hopefully we see a new wave of recruitment SAS products come out in the next year or so to really automate a lot of this stuff that I can see companies doing themselves.

STEVE: Yeah. You could patch things together, like using tools like Zapier or, like now, Clay. And there's some, I found some form tools where you can give vocal answers or video answers. So it prompts you to click and then record. So, like, you're getting video answers instead of just written ones. So, like, that person can't just generate, like,. But then there's the balance of, like, how much work do you put a candidate through that seems unfair because they're not really getting paid? They have to go through all these hoops just to get an interview, but then the other side is you're getting people that are actually putting the effort in and getting real candidates to show up, especially if you have a big broad net out there and you're running promotions for a long time; that should yield a handful of results. Because you don't even want a ton of results. You just want one a month, like if that, especially if you're not really hiring at the moment; you don't want to push it out there too much. But like I said, these influxes of clients or orders or anything could come up. You don't want to have to hire out of just like necessity just to get bodies in your business. Like you'd like to have some sort of time to validate and vet people. And this kind of gives you a proactive leg up.

TIM: Yep. You don't want that cold start every single time you need to hire someone because it's a schlep to get everyone from the start to the finish of the process, and it takes time to find the right person. Steve, it's been a wide-ranging and fascinating conversation today. So much for sharing all of your insights with our audience.

STEVE: Oh, I loved being here, Tim. Thanks for having me on.