Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host
Joanne Lockwood: for the Inclusion Bites Podcast. In this
Joanne Lockwood: series, I have interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had
Joanne Lockwood: a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging
Joanne Lockwood: and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
Joanne Lockwood: If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a
Joanne Lockwood: line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: that's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You can catch up with all of the previous shows on itunes,
Joanne Lockwood: Spotify and the usual places. So
Joanne Lockwood: plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and
Joanne Lockwood: let's get going. Today is
Joanne Lockwood: Episode 89 with the title Unearthing
Joanne Lockwood: Potential beyond the Resume.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome
Joanne Lockwood: Sara Dalsfeld. Sara is the Chief Marketing
Joanne Lockwood: Officer at Adway. Adway are a talent attraction
Joanne Lockwood: suite, a consciously inclusive platform that
Joanne Lockwood: is built to find hard to reach talent on social media.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I asked Sara to describe her superpower, she
Joanne Lockwood: said she unapologetically dares
Joanne Lockwood: to be herself and walks the talk. Hello,
Joanne Lockwood: Sara, welcome to the show. Hello, Jo. Thank you for
Sara Dalsfelt: having me on the show. We met
Joanne Lockwood: several years ago. I think I did an adway
Joanne Lockwood: podcast or live stream with you and we just went in the green room, weren't
Joanne Lockwood: we? That was four or five years ago, early COVID. Yeah,
Sara Dalsfelt: I just looked back. You were on my LinkedIn live show, 2019, I
Sara Dalsfelt: believe, and we did a fabulous episode. You can
Sara Dalsfelt: still rewatch it, everyone, for listening. In English it was called is
Sara Dalsfelt: hiring for diversity hiring for second best? And we
Sara Dalsfelt: unpacked what conscious inclusion means in Practise for hiring teams.
Sara Dalsfelt: It's still a really good topic, a really good show.
Sara Dalsfelt: And that's how we met, I believe, through the TA
Sara Dalsfelt: community. It was last
Joanne Lockwood: year. Yeah, we did on the adway
Joanne Lockwood: stand, yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. I've been a fan of yours ever since,
Sara Dalsfelt: Joanne. Like what you do for the space, who you are, the knowledge
Sara Dalsfelt: you bring, the perspectives. I recommend you to
Sara Dalsfelt: everyone I stumble across for Conscious Inclusive
Sara Dalsfelt: hiring tactics. For those of you can't see,
Joanne Lockwood: because this is a podcast, I've gone bright red, I'm blushing, I'm all over the
Joanne Lockwood: place. This fangirl stuff is hard to take.
Joanne Lockwood: Fangirls. You have to take it in. You're an important voice. Thank
Joanne Lockwood: you. So, Unearthing
Joanne Lockwood: Potential and so what is beyond the resume? Can we bin
Joanne Lockwood: the resume? Yeah. For me, I
Sara Dalsfelt: believe we're heading into a time where candidates
Sara Dalsfelt: almost will start questioning employers in why
Sara Dalsfelt: they're assessing their potential based on a piece of paper. I
Sara Dalsfelt: believe we're almost there. Where? Well, the CV is, for most employers
Sara Dalsfelt: now, even ancient, but it's still used, right. It's a traditional
Sara Dalsfelt: hiring tactic, but in a very near
Sara Dalsfelt: future, candidates will start questioning, how is this even
Sara Dalsfelt: relevant to assessing my readiness, my potential and
Sara Dalsfelt: my transferable skills? So everything
Sara Dalsfelt: is beyond the resume? Everything is beyond the CV. The
Sara Dalsfelt: person, the potential the people is beyond the CV. So
Sara Dalsfelt: it's just an easy way for employers to weed out
Sara Dalsfelt: what's not relevant to them and it holds a lot of
Sara Dalsfelt: bias into the process. Don't you find
Joanne Lockwood: that many traditional hiring
Joanne Lockwood: managers, employers, they've got this kind
Joanne Lockwood: of scared they're scared, aren't they? They start twitching if you say
Joanne Lockwood: we can't have a CV. And they go how can I find out about people
Joanne Lockwood: if I don't have their CV? Minds are blown. Minds are blown.
Sara Dalsfelt: I'm here to tell you there's never been a time where there's more
Sara Dalsfelt: tools, more tech, more solutions, more everything
Sara Dalsfelt: to assess potential as early as possible in the
Sara Dalsfelt: hiring funnel. And for me, Joanne, it all
Sara Dalsfelt: comes down to if you're not consciously including,
Sara Dalsfelt: you are most likely unconsciously excluding.
Joanne Lockwood: That's definitely one of my sayings. I've used that. So yeah, it's so true.
Sara Dalsfelt: There's so very few people building that in to their
Sara Dalsfelt: talent attraction or talent acquisition strategy or hiring
Sara Dalsfelt: strategy. It's still just a saying, it's a good quote on the fridge.
Sara Dalsfelt: But we're here to say you have to consciously build it
Sara Dalsfelt: in to your tech stack or your strategy or anything
Sara Dalsfelt: in order when you go to find talents, it has to be built in,
Sara Dalsfelt: otherwise you are most likely excluding
Sara Dalsfelt: are organisations. This is a sporting analogy. Are they match fit
Joanne Lockwood: for hiring? Because I see people talking about diverse
Joanne Lockwood: hiring, inclusive hiring, whatever buzzword they want to
Joanne Lockwood: use to make them sound kind of contemporary and on the
Joanne Lockwood: mark. But I always wonder
Joanne Lockwood: if the candidate experience and the employee experience
Joanne Lockwood: they're selling is reality or a dream or
Joanne Lockwood: vapour. Right? Absolutely. It's most likely
Sara Dalsfelt: buzzwords. Right. We have to start somewhere. I believe everything starts with
Sara Dalsfelt: buzwords but I mean, we have the
Sara Dalsfelt: knowledge anything at our
Sara Dalsfelt: fingertips, we can't just rely on
Sara Dalsfelt: buzwords or quotes anymore. We have to start acting. And
Sara Dalsfelt: as beautiful as our ta community is, we're good at talking.
Sara Dalsfelt: That's where I sort know introduced myself with I walk the
Sara Dalsfelt: talk. So why we built that way five years ago was
Sara Dalsfelt: to make sure that there are tools
Sara Dalsfelt: harnessing all the potential in diversity on social media. Because
Sara Dalsfelt: there's over 5 billion people, every person under the sun
Sara Dalsfelt: is on social media potentially. And there's ways where
Sara Dalsfelt: you have to work in order to keep up
Sara Dalsfelt: with the policies on some, to actively include
Sara Dalsfelt: and not target anyone on gender or age or ethnicity
Sara Dalsfelt: or all these factors that might come from an idea, from an hiring
Sara Dalsfelt: manager. Right? So we built that way to have an
Sara Dalsfelt: automated suite powered by AI to really go out and find
Sara Dalsfelt: potential on social media and make sure the candid experience is walking
Sara Dalsfelt: the talk. In terms of
Sara Dalsfelt: the best shopping experience you've ever had online,
Sara Dalsfelt: designing your dream car or just ordering your
Sara Dalsfelt: foods for the grocery store or whatever piece of clothing you might
Sara Dalsfelt: order that, but better, more sophisticated and more personalised should
Sara Dalsfelt: be your hiring experience as well. So that's
Sara Dalsfelt: the reason why we did it. And so far the most innovative and most
Sara Dalsfelt: thought provoking and forward TA teams are using these kind
Sara Dalsfelt: of tools because they know if they're not consciously
Sara Dalsfelt: include, they are excluding in somewhere in the
Sara Dalsfelt: journey. And I believe well, some
Sara Dalsfelt: say, I say 90% of your hiring success is
Sara Dalsfelt: determined at the first 10% of the
Sara Dalsfelt: journey. So what you do in the first process, when you go
Sara Dalsfelt: broad, when you go to find your audience and you start nudging
Sara Dalsfelt: and attracting and building this storytelling experience for them,
Sara Dalsfelt: that's where you can improve for potential and
Sara Dalsfelt: diversity in the very first steps. And then, yes, there should be
Sara Dalsfelt: automated assessments, right? There should be automated testing, there should be all these
Sara Dalsfelt: features that helps both the hiring teams and the
Sara Dalsfelt: candidate experience, right? So
Sara Dalsfelt: why I'm on the podcast, Joe,
Sara Dalsfelt: it's everything that we do, it's everything that I believe in and for myself.
Sara Dalsfelt: I know we touched upon where I shared. I
Sara Dalsfelt: have a one year long gap in my CV or
Sara Dalsfelt: resume from a trauma, a really troubling trauma
Sara Dalsfelt: where I had to be off work, right? And
Sara Dalsfelt: these traditional hiring methods would never hire me. And here I
Sara Dalsfelt: am, the CMO of my dream company that we started five years ago.
Sara Dalsfelt: I would never been hired if I were to be judged
Sara Dalsfelt: by a recruiter from my cover letter because
Sara Dalsfelt: it's not saying anything about my readiness or my potential or what
Sara Dalsfelt: I bring to the table in terms of transferable skills, et
Sara Dalsfelt: cetera. So to answer your question, what's behind the
Sara Dalsfelt: resume? Everything potential.
Joanne Lockwood: So we know that the talent attraction part of the
Joanne Lockwood: story starts way before we go to
Joanne Lockwood: market with a campaign. If you're
Joanne Lockwood: not in Ta, you're not in recruitment, talent acquisition,
Joanne Lockwood: EVP, employer branding, all this value proposition
Joanne Lockwood: stuff all around the recruitment marketing element. It's got to start way
Joanne Lockwood: before and be that authentic thread through the organisation.
Joanne Lockwood: So I often find that organisations are trying to jump to the hiring
Joanne Lockwood: phase without doing the heavy
Joanne Lockwood: lift on the. But on the contrary, a lot of
Sara Dalsfelt: teams, they stay stuck and paralysed in the
Sara Dalsfelt: work of the EVP or the career page or the value proposition
Sara Dalsfelt: or the communication versus not a lot of people have the
Sara Dalsfelt: distribution, the actual strategy. How do
Sara Dalsfelt: you take your fabulous EVP to the
Sara Dalsfelt: phones, the hands of the most desired
Sara Dalsfelt: candidates that you want to approach? Not a lot of teams
Sara Dalsfelt: put the investment or the energy into the
Sara Dalsfelt: distribution of that. They just hope that people will find their EVP
Sara Dalsfelt: or find their employer branding. So even if you have the most
Sara Dalsfelt: inclusive promise as an employer, how do you
Sara Dalsfelt: have the most inclusive and thought through strategy
Sara Dalsfelt: to go and approach them? And approaching
Sara Dalsfelt: means approaching mostly like passive candidates, hard
Sara Dalsfelt: to reach talents. Talents that most likely are already
Sara Dalsfelt: fully employed, working doing what they
Sara Dalsfelt: love. So you now have to have a strategy that's
Sara Dalsfelt: really built into providing your lovely EVP
Sara Dalsfelt: into the hands of their phones, where they spend over three 4
Sara Dalsfelt: hours a day scrolling through social media. And it has to be an experience
Sara Dalsfelt: that's built for that specific social media channels that they're in,
Sara Dalsfelt: all while being as inclusive as they want it with their
Sara Dalsfelt: EVP. So you see, there's a lot of like
Sara Dalsfelt: as to your point, a lot of teams spend their time figuring out
Sara Dalsfelt: the EVP, but the other part they just jump
Sara Dalsfelt: straight into the hiring and not a lot of companies spend the time on the
Sara Dalsfelt: distribution. How do we go to market? How do we make
Sara Dalsfelt: sure that we've opened the funnel for as many
Sara Dalsfelt: talents as possible? Because here's the facts. You
Sara Dalsfelt: need to go broad in order to attract diverse talent
Sara Dalsfelt: and the best talent from there,
Sara Dalsfelt: volumes of candidates will still be relevant talents
Sara Dalsfelt: if you automate the assessment and the testing and
Sara Dalsfelt: everything screening based that you might have. But you
Sara Dalsfelt: can't say that you have an inclusive hiring if you just go to a selected
Sara Dalsfelt: network or a close group or your best
Sara Dalsfelt: friend, or your male friend.
Sara Dalsfelt: That usually happens. So that's why I
Sara Dalsfelt: really challenge ta teams to look into how do you go to
Sara Dalsfelt: market and stay consciously inclusive.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm just trying to piece together what you're saying here. So help me out.
Joanne Lockwood: So are we talking about a broad
Joanne Lockwood: spectrum of trying to build our candidate
Joanne Lockwood: pool our talent pipeline from a broader spectrum as possible
Joanne Lockwood: around a broad demographic and skill set and everything else,
Joanne Lockwood: and then being able to bring those into your funnel, your pipeline
Joanne Lockwood: and use automation to sift
Joanne Lockwood: preselect on competency and capability and
Joanne Lockwood: adaptability and change all these sort of things. Yes, the hiring team
Joanne Lockwood: themselves are just getting a presifted diverse
Joanne Lockwood: pool. Exactly that. Exactly that. You won't get to a
Sara Dalsfelt: presifted diverse, relevant pool if you don't open the
Sara Dalsfelt: funnel from the beginning. And opening the funnel is utilising
Sara Dalsfelt: tech because there's the heavy lifting right there's where
Sara Dalsfelt: automation really comes in. So what I'm saying is
Sara Dalsfelt: there's no other platform in the world where over
Sara Dalsfelt: 5 billion people spend more time than they do on
Sara Dalsfelt: eating every day. The general user on
Sara Dalsfelt: social media spends social media almost like they spend almost
Sara Dalsfelt: 2.5 hours a day. And that is increasing. Like, you know,
Sara Dalsfelt: just cheque your settings, right? That is increasing. So what I say is
Sara Dalsfelt: you have to go where the candidates spend their time, where they live
Sara Dalsfelt: their lives, right? You have to then make sure you
Sara Dalsfelt: are distributing a strategy that builds a storytelling experience
Sara Dalsfelt: based on your EVP, on your employer brand, on all these value
Sara Dalsfelt: propositions that are as inclusive as you say. Meaning
Sara Dalsfelt: you will then only attract and assess the most relevant talents because
Sara Dalsfelt: they've been appealed and targeted based on potential and readiness.
Sara Dalsfelt: And your arguments that are
Sara Dalsfelt: selling to them. Because there's always
Sara Dalsfelt: like, I love this discussion, but people always come back to it, say, I just
Sara Dalsfelt: want one great candidate. Right.
Sara Dalsfelt: How with one great candidate would you know, you've opened the pool for
Sara Dalsfelt: potential, for inclusion, for diversity. For
Sara Dalsfelt: diversity. You wouldn't. What you're saying to
Sara Dalsfelt: me is I want an easy life. Sure. Easy life means doing
Sara Dalsfelt: the right thing, consciously working into
Sara Dalsfelt: working inclusive strategies into your method,
Sara Dalsfelt: but utilising the tech then to do the heavy lifting. So you sit
Sara Dalsfelt: then with that relevant social talent pools
Sara Dalsfelt: based on relevance, potential, readiness,
Sara Dalsfelt: and with the most diverse teams you could ever imagine. And from there
Sara Dalsfelt: you could start assessing. Right.
Joanne Lockwood: This is kind of like headhunting on
Joanne Lockwood: a mega enormous scale. So you've
Joanne Lockwood: got a pool of potentially thousands of people or more
Joanne Lockwood: being spear fishing them. So you're targeting them directly
Joanne Lockwood: on mass. Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: You're not suggesting cast a broad net everywhere. What you're
Joanne Lockwood: saying is you're casting your net specifically for
Joanne Lockwood: competency and skills. So it is spear phishing, but on a
Joanne Lockwood: mega scale. Yeah. And we work with behavioural targeting, so
Sara Dalsfelt: it's still targeted. But then
Sara Dalsfelt: how algorithms work is that they have to learn
Sara Dalsfelt: from a lot of data initially. Right. And
Sara Dalsfelt: with that you can then teach algorithm to work towards
Sara Dalsfelt: then specific data points that are building for an
Sara Dalsfelt: inclusive hiring strategy or not segmenting anyone
Sara Dalsfelt: on gender or ethnicity or all these bias factors.
Sara Dalsfelt: So it's simply making
Sara Dalsfelt: sure you walk the talk in your ta setup as
Sara Dalsfelt: well. Like, everything into your tech stack should walk the
Sara Dalsfelt: talk and you have to make sure it does. Can't just be the
Sara Dalsfelt: quote you're throwing at your next RL 100 talk.
Sara Dalsfelt: Right. You have to walk the talk and
Sara Dalsfelt: look into your own process.
Joanne Lockwood: How long does the candidate stay passive in the
Joanne Lockwood: process? Until they're kind of triggered into a
Joanne Lockwood: kind of yes, this person meets our primary criteria, then we'll do some
Joanne Lockwood: outreach so they can be passive in this process for
Joanne Lockwood: years. Drop into it. This is such an interesting
Sara Dalsfelt: question. Right. So there's a consensus in the market, like in the
Sara Dalsfelt: hiring industry, that we've
Sara Dalsfelt: always talked about a passive and an active market. Right. People active
Sara Dalsfelt: looking for a job when they're in between jobs. Right. And people who happen to
Sara Dalsfelt: be employed. But I like to look at
Sara Dalsfelt: it as to your point, as how I incorporate your
Sara Dalsfelt: question. There's a window of opportunity where
Sara Dalsfelt: someone is about to act if we go back to e commerce
Sara Dalsfelt: and shopping tactics online. Right. I'm a passive
Sara Dalsfelt: customer always. I have money, I'm on social media, I
Sara Dalsfelt: like clothes. Let's make it easy. Right? I'm not in the look for
Sara Dalsfelt: anything. Yeah, you too. Exactly. Who isn't? Jack Joe? Who
Sara Dalsfelt: isn't? I'm not in the look for anything. Let's just make it super
Sara Dalsfelt: easy. It's been black month. Black Friday. I've
Sara Dalsfelt: done all my shopping. I'm satisfied. But I'm still a
Sara Dalsfelt: passive customer online, living my life on
Sara Dalsfelt: social media, right? If I stumble across
Sara Dalsfelt: really targeted ads with very personalised messages,
Sara Dalsfelt: discount codes, anything, and these ads,
Sara Dalsfelt: iterate they go after me on Instagram, then when I'm
Sara Dalsfelt: on TikTok, I get a new one. When I'm on LinkedIn, I get three other
Sara Dalsfelt: ones. When know, jumping into could be Twitch
Sara Dalsfelt: or whatever platform that might be. I have a designed
Sara Dalsfelt: experience to sort of approach me with a product, right?
Sara Dalsfelt: In this case, might be a bag. I like bags, for instance.
Sara Dalsfelt: Let's make it super easy. So there's a window of opportunity
Sara Dalsfelt: where I've been nudged enough times.
Sara Dalsfelt: There's not a golden number, but a lot of people say there should be seven
Sara Dalsfelt: touch points in order to make an action, right? So
Sara Dalsfelt: in the window of time where I turn active,
Sara Dalsfelt: that's where I believe you have to make sure you have a process that's
Sara Dalsfelt: so sophisticated, that actually capitalises on
Sara Dalsfelt: my window of opportunity when I'm active. So it means
Sara Dalsfelt: I need to be buying this bag with one click. I have
Sara Dalsfelt: to feel super secure. I have to trust the tech. I have
Sara Dalsfelt: to make sure it's not a scam site, it's not a scam
Sara Dalsfelt: company taking my card details. I have to feel super
Sara Dalsfelt: trusted. And it should be the smoothest, easiest
Sara Dalsfelt: confirming experience ever. Like, yes, sir, you're doing the right thing.
Sara Dalsfelt: The bag is coming in a day. One click, we have all the
Sara Dalsfelt: information that we need. And the same goes for
Sara Dalsfelt: applying for a job. There's a window of opportunity.
Sara Dalsfelt: And this window of opportunity can increase by building
Sara Dalsfelt: these personalised storytelling experiences over social media
Sara Dalsfelt: platforms, making me turning me into an active
Sara Dalsfelt: candidate once I've been presented
Sara Dalsfelt: with these offers over time. So to your point, yes, it can
Sara Dalsfelt: take over six months. We have a process that makes
Sara Dalsfelt: sure our customers, they hire everything from
Sara Dalsfelt: CEOs down to customer service personnel or whatever, like
Sara Dalsfelt: all different types of roles. And it takes
Sara Dalsfelt: forever for some because they're so passive. Could be eye
Sara Dalsfelt: doctors or pharmacists, right? They're
Sara Dalsfelt: so passive in terms of looking for job, but they're very active in terms of
Sara Dalsfelt: working, so they're not a lot of time approaching them, right? They might be on
Sara Dalsfelt: social media just when they're taking a coffee. Then the
Sara Dalsfelt: timing needs to be there. The sophisticated strategy needs to be there. So
Sara Dalsfelt: I like to look at it as a window of time
Sara Dalsfelt: when someone turn active. You have to make sure your
Sara Dalsfelt: software works for you to capitalise on this
Sara Dalsfelt: very rare moment. I
Joanne Lockwood: love that idea. I'm with you on bags, but I'm
Joanne Lockwood: probably almost active on buying an air
Joanne Lockwood: fryer everywhere I go. I
Sara Dalsfelt: bet you every social media channel knows this.
Sara Dalsfelt: You're 80% there. And I'm being honed
Joanne Lockwood: into a certain brand, a certain price range,
Joanne Lockwood: certain feature set, because I can feel that I've inquired and I've done some
Joanne Lockwood: research and I'm looking at certain things. So this
Joanne Lockwood: is what you're saying, really is it's building up a behavioural pattern
Joanne Lockwood: of what has interested me, what hasn't interested me,
Joanne Lockwood: where I go, it indicates my abilities and my
Joanne Lockwood: people I hang out with. So you're building up a picture of me to know
Joanne Lockwood: that this particular air fryer on Black Friday, and you
Joanne Lockwood: probably know that 50 pounds off is my kind of deal
Joanne Lockwood: threshold. Yes. And then I'm going to click on it and then, as you
Joanne Lockwood: say, it has to happen immediately. Immediately,
Sara Dalsfelt: yes. It has to be a trusted process. Super easy, one
Sara Dalsfelt: click and it should be. Imagine
Sara Dalsfelt: the business of an e commerce, not converting those
Sara Dalsfelt: Joes like yourself actually going to market for that air
Sara Dalsfelt: fryer. Imagine that business loss. And the same goes
Sara Dalsfelt: for ta teams. For instance, look at the spill happening
Sara Dalsfelt: on every career page today. Every ta team out there
Sara Dalsfelt: invests a lot of money in driving traffic to their career page.
Sara Dalsfelt: Nothing new. Right. What do you think is the average conversion rate on a career
Sara Dalsfelt: page today? I guess it was pretty low because people are
Joanne Lockwood: just window shopping, passively checking the market out.
Sara Dalsfelt: Yes. But some teams are like, I wouldn't,
Sara Dalsfelt: so I argue there's not a lot of passive
Sara Dalsfelt: candidates just surfing around, a lot of clicks, a
Sara Dalsfelt: lot of steps down to your specific career page.
Sara Dalsfelt: It's a big ask. It's a big ask for a pharmaceutical
Sara Dalsfelt: working full time, super stressed, having
Sara Dalsfelt: everything to do by themselves. Right. So not a lot
Sara Dalsfelt: of passive candidates stumble across a career page because
Sara Dalsfelt: that's not like your SEO isn't that good? I would just shout. You got to
Joanne Lockwood: kind of have a motivation. You're disgruntled, you're at
Joanne Lockwood: risk, something's happened. Exactly.
Sara Dalsfelt: There's people naturally looking for there's some
Sara Dalsfelt: percentage going into career pages, but that's not the majority. The majority
Sara Dalsfelt: would mainly spend their time on social media or anything
Sara Dalsfelt: else on their phones. Right. But so the ones that
Sara Dalsfelt: actually do come to the career page have
Sara Dalsfelt: often committed to something. There's often some interest there.
Sara Dalsfelt: Once you actually come into a career page, that means
Sara Dalsfelt: losing out. On an average, 98%
Sara Dalsfelt: of the traffic is like throwing fishnets in the
Sara Dalsfelt: water and not picking up the fish. And this happens for almost all
Sara Dalsfelt: ta teams and hiring teams out there. And again, how is this
Sara Dalsfelt: building upon to your inclusive, diverse talent
Sara Dalsfelt: pools? How is this building for the canned experience? It's not. It's
Sara Dalsfelt: just repelling thousands and
Sara Dalsfelt: thousands and thousands of people every day. Hundreds, if you're an
Sara Dalsfelt: average company. But this loop is just
Sara Dalsfelt: where I get
Sara Dalsfelt: fascinated of how this can still be going on when there's
Sara Dalsfelt: so much knowledge and there's so much you don't even
Sara Dalsfelt: have to be using social media yourself to know that there's a
Sara Dalsfelt: certain expectation from a persona, a user
Sara Dalsfelt: today. And, Joe, you're the same persona buying the airfire as
Sara Dalsfelt: you would be applying for a job that Adway would promote. Right.
Sara Dalsfelt: You're still the same. Your behaviour is still the same. You have the same
Sara Dalsfelt: expectations. You go into social media, you go online, you have an
Sara Dalsfelt: expectation of your user experience that has to be
Sara Dalsfelt: met. Otherwise you would never buy the air fryer.
Sara Dalsfelt: You expect Amazon checkout or you expect easy
Sara Dalsfelt: buy or you expect klarna easy checkout or whatever.
Sara Dalsfelt: And the same persona is expecting a super easy
Sara Dalsfelt: application journey. So as
Joanne Lockwood: a passive candidate, I'm browsing minded my own business
Joanne Lockwood: and I would start seeing targeted
Joanne Lockwood: content around a brand, around a
Joanne Lockwood: story the brand's telling to lure me in, to
Joanne Lockwood: create a brand association. This brand is good. I love this
Joanne Lockwood: brand in my head. And then they're going to kind
Joanne Lockwood: of hit me with a why don't you find out more about us? Is that
Joanne Lockwood: the kind of approach to try and drive me into their inquiry
Joanne Lockwood: funnel? Yes. So what we do is we build social talent
Sara Dalsfelt: pools built of relevance as well. So, yes, we would definitely
Sara Dalsfelt: go to market with a lot of arguments built on our
Sara Dalsfelt: customers. ICP, EVP, employee branding, all the arguments that's
Sara Dalsfelt: relevant for all the categories that they are
Sara Dalsfelt: promoting. But then as to your point, there needs to be a sort
Sara Dalsfelt: of Hansel and Greta storytelling experience
Sara Dalsfelt: happening to even care. Because you're not in a war for
Sara Dalsfelt: talent, you're in a war for attention.
Sara Dalsfelt: And that comes back to the distribution and the strategy of
Sara Dalsfelt: getting the right message at the right time on the right platform with the
Sara Dalsfelt: right window of opportunity. So what we do is
Sara Dalsfelt: that we build these talent pools that we can then retarget with all
Sara Dalsfelt: these relevant messages. One good example that we always
Sara Dalsfelt: do is, for instance, how the travel industry
Sara Dalsfelt: have really nailed online
Sara Dalsfelt: purchases of travels, right? The majority
Sara Dalsfelt: of travels being sold or bought today is happening online.
Sara Dalsfelt: And that's been an industry sort of pioneering how
Sara Dalsfelt: you would go about an online order,
Sara Dalsfelt: because like ten years back, we still shopped a lot of
Sara Dalsfelt: well, we did a lot of travel bookings online. It was one of the first
Sara Dalsfelt: industries starting it, and still today it's one of the most lucrative
Sara Dalsfelt: industries in terms of online shopping. Right? So what they do is,
Sara Dalsfelt: first of all, an online ecommerce company, like
Sara Dalsfelt: booking.com, let's make it easy. They are very much
Sara Dalsfelt: aware that it's not one ad that sells
Sara Dalsfelt: their travel destination. It's an experience.
Sara Dalsfelt: And it's an experience that has to have built in social proof
Sara Dalsfelt: and trust in order for anyone to even care and
Sara Dalsfelt: put that much money behind it. Because it's for instance, let's say we're going to
Sara Dalsfelt: the Maldives, quite an investment. Often
Sara Dalsfelt: like honeymoon investment, even like you wouldn't just randomly on
Sara Dalsfelt: a spring holiday go to Maldives, right? This is big investment and
Sara Dalsfelt: these companies know this. So they have to build a storytelling
Sara Dalsfelt: experience where they blend
Sara Dalsfelt: messages and social proof and trust into all these
Sara Dalsfelt: different ads, approaching the customers
Sara Dalsfelt: with a sophisticated, timely,
Sara Dalsfelt: precisely timing of everything. So there's like a
Sara Dalsfelt: fine line being spammed, as you might have been experienced,
Sara Dalsfelt: Joe, like, spammed with the targeting ads. Like, I already bought those shoes.
Sara Dalsfelt: Why are they still following me? That is not a sophisticated journey,
Sara Dalsfelt: that's sort of spray and pray approach to targeted advertising. But
Sara Dalsfelt: the sophistication means messages
Sara Dalsfelt: right on time, where they still feel nudging and not like,
Sara Dalsfelt: big brother is watching me, right? And this is where e commerce for travel
Sara Dalsfelt: agencies have done amazingly well. So the first ad that my show
Sara Dalsfelt: is going to, it's going to be like a couple
Sara Dalsfelt: experience going to the Maldives, right? They show the turquoise water,
Sara Dalsfelt: they show the villa, they show the champagne on the beach, and it's just like
Sara Dalsfelt: setting the scene. The first ad is like, we have a package deal for you
Sara Dalsfelt: going to the Maldives. They know this is not where you buy, but this is
Sara Dalsfelt: where someone in your reptile brain,
Sara Dalsfelt: something might be registered. Right?
Sara Dalsfelt: Three days later, they show, oh, so this is
Sara Dalsfelt: a kids free hotel. It's for couples looking to get away,
Sara Dalsfelt: having their old bungalow. It's really, like, targeted towards you and perhaps
Sara Dalsfelt: your wife, because they know, right? Fourth day, fifth
Sara Dalsfelt: day, it's a family testimonial, or in this case, a couple
Sara Dalsfelt: testimonial. Yes, it was kids free. I got all the free
Sara Dalsfelt: massages that I wanted. It was so much rest for me. I had
Sara Dalsfelt: the best time ever. Five ratings, right? Day
Sara Dalsfelt: ten, there comes the booking.com review.
Sara Dalsfelt: Like, ten stars. Best reviews ever. A lot of
Sara Dalsfelt: couples love this destination. It was worth all the money ever.
Sara Dalsfelt: We would never regret this. Yada, yada, yada. And on day
Sara Dalsfelt: 14, you get the last ad in the sequence
Sara Dalsfelt: of storytelling with a 20% discount.
Sara Dalsfelt: Last chance to buy. Would you believe
Sara Dalsfelt: they would sell the same amount of travel packages on the first
Sara Dalsfelt: ad versus the last ad? I can believe that. Because the people
Joanne Lockwood: have different buyer journeys, different buyer experiences, different impulses.
Sara Dalsfelt: Exactly. So every one is going to
Joanne Lockwood: peel people off, depart, and then
Joanne Lockwood: no doubt, the last one, that's not give up. That's just pause and
Joanne Lockwood: come back later, isn't it? You don't give up completely. Exactly. It can always
Sara Dalsfelt: be retargeted. And they know that. The couple testimonial
Sara Dalsfelt: ad you've sent to your wife, like, hey,
Sara Dalsfelt: aren't we worth this? We're worth this. And then the questioning
Sara Dalsfelt: start happening and you guys could start picturing yourself going
Sara Dalsfelt: there. So once you get the last message, the
Sara Dalsfelt: last ad, the last storytelling experience, it's a no go.
Sara Dalsfelt: And that's how we like to approach talent attraction as well. We need to build
Sara Dalsfelt: a storytelling experience to sell them their new lifestyle,
Sara Dalsfelt: their new life work, life balance. All these
Sara Dalsfelt: arguments that are selling the position and selling their new
Sara Dalsfelt: potential job. And it should be as timed as
Sara Dalsfelt: the Monday, you go in and you actually have
Sara Dalsfelt: a bad meeting with your manager and like, damn it, I'd never get
Sara Dalsfelt: my will through. Whatever. And bam, there's the ad. Find a
Sara Dalsfelt: date to apply, let's go. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's being there, being ready. And you say spear fishing, right at the point
Joanne Lockwood: on that cusp of being passive active, isn't it? It's no point, right? And
Sara Dalsfelt: I like to see it as window of opportunity. So when someone actually is turning
Sara Dalsfelt: active, you better work. The solution better work
Sara Dalsfelt: for you. So, as you can tell, I love this topic and coming back to
Sara Dalsfelt: inclusive hiring strategies, there's so much we can do, there's so much
Sara Dalsfelt: tools in our hands, there's so much knowledge, and there's never been a better
Sara Dalsfelt: case for conscious inclusion and making sure
Sara Dalsfelt: you're hiring people who can bring their authentic selves to work. That is where
Sara Dalsfelt: we are. And adway, we've been inspired by so many
Sara Dalsfelt: of you guys, every advocate and profile,
Sara Dalsfelt: educating the market, and we just believe we have the tech and
Sara Dalsfelt: solution to actually activate it and making it real and
Sara Dalsfelt: not just keeping it as a good quote. We
Sara Dalsfelt: want to change how we work. We want to change and make sure we have
Sara Dalsfelt: the tools operating currently. So
Joanne Lockwood: you're in the majority working with forward thinking companies
Joanne Lockwood: who kind of plugged into this, who get it. There's
Joanne Lockwood: still the rest of the world that is operating
Joanne Lockwood: on a different modus operandi. And you know as well as I do
Joanne Lockwood: that the challenge is the cost per hire, the speed
Joanne Lockwood: of hire, the experience, all those kind of things. And
Joanne Lockwood: whenever I'm talking to organisations, the frustration is
Joanne Lockwood: around getting people into the funnel of
Joanne Lockwood: a broadest demographic. Possible. Exactly. In
Joanne Lockwood: a cost effective way. So let's just talk about the people who haven't
Joanne Lockwood: found the light just yet. And that's a challenge, because what we end up
Joanne Lockwood: doing is we end up using traditional recruitment processes with
Joanne Lockwood: a non diverse and non broad demographic talent
Joanne Lockwood: pool, wondering why we're not getting the output from
Joanne Lockwood: that pipeline. True. Or enough candidates to give you
Joanne Lockwood: choice across a broad demographic. That's the challenge, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: And it's around getting the people in the funnel. And you're saying this passive active
Joanne Lockwood: window of opportunity is a way of getting people into the top of funnel
Joanne Lockwood: and then doing something with it. So let's talk about I've
Joanne Lockwood: clicked. Yeah, I want the air fry, I want the holiday, I want the couple's
Joanne Lockwood: retreat, I want that new handbag, that pair of shoes. I definitely got to
Joanne Lockwood: have that pair. So I've clicked. What
Joanne Lockwood: should my candidate experience be like from that point
Joanne Lockwood: forward? So I want to advocate that the
Sara Dalsfelt: expectation here, even if it's a handbag, even if
Sara Dalsfelt: it's the travel, even if it's the air fryer, is
Sara Dalsfelt: that you do not want to leave the form.
Sara Dalsfelt: And by form, I want to say, when you click on an ad, what.
Sara Dalsfelt: Should happen is you called straight in to the
Sara Dalsfelt: application form. In this case, it should be as easy as
Sara Dalsfelt: submitting a lead. For instance, Joe, you pressed a
Sara Dalsfelt: job ad from adway. What should happen and what does happen with our talent
Sara Dalsfelt: attraction suite is you get a question like, would you like to
Sara Dalsfelt: register interest or would you like to apply? You only
Sara Dalsfelt: need to submit your email to actually
Sara Dalsfelt: be in the loop. And this is where a lot of ta teams and
Sara Dalsfelt: hiring teams get stuff wrong, because the old way of looking
Sara Dalsfelt: in hiring is we don't want a lot of work to
Sara Dalsfelt: go through. Like that's the old way of looking. I would
Sara Dalsfelt: even argue that most hiring processes is built to weed
Sara Dalsfelt: out, not include versus today
Sara Dalsfelt: you have to broaden your perspective. You have to have a process
Sara Dalsfelt: that includes. That means if Joe has a
Sara Dalsfelt: window of opportunity, you have to meet that and you have to make
Sara Dalsfelt: it super, like, stupidly super easy
Sara Dalsfelt: to capture this interest. Which means one click
Sara Dalsfelt: is what needs in the initial phase, then
Sara Dalsfelt: it should be a gamified experience. So, for instance, what we built
Sara Dalsfelt: is you stay in the ad, you submit your email, then you
Sara Dalsfelt: can leave. We don't need anything more from you. We can retarget
Sara Dalsfelt: you and we can say, hey, Joe, remember you applied for head of
Sara Dalsfelt: the universe at Tesla, head of universal Tesla,
Sara Dalsfelt: right? Great role for you, Joe. Then you get a ping notification or an
Sara Dalsfelt: email or an ad, whatever you like, an SMS, a text, could be anything
Sara Dalsfelt: saying, well, you've only submitted 20% of the information
Sara Dalsfelt: to become a great hire for Tesla. Would you like to just include three
Sara Dalsfelt: screening questions and then you're 100% done. So it's a
Sara Dalsfelt: gamified experience. Either you stay in the ad and you just fill
Sara Dalsfelt: know if it's screening questions or know the employer of
Sara Dalsfelt: choice tesla have chosen to fill in to make your hiring process,
Sara Dalsfelt: or you leave the form and come back when you have the time. Because you
Sara Dalsfelt: might be on the subway, you might be in the supermarket, you might be in
Sara Dalsfelt: the bathroom. So there's always alternatives to when you
Sara Dalsfelt: submit and come back. But capturing the first interest is
Sara Dalsfelt: vital, the first window of opportunity you have to capture.
Sara Dalsfelt: Then you can always push the candidate to update their
Sara Dalsfelt: profile. In this case, it's not a profile, but it's still an
Sara Dalsfelt: application for head of universus Tesla. You don't have to create an account, but you
Sara Dalsfelt: can still be submitting your profile to the talent
Sara Dalsfelt: pool of this role, right? Or you stay in the form, you add your
Sara Dalsfelt: email and you answer a few questions, making sure
Sara Dalsfelt: the most relevant information come through, right? We don't need
Sara Dalsfelt: poster code, we don't need that. We just need to make sure that you
Sara Dalsfelt: perhaps live in France if this is the case for know, these
Sara Dalsfelt: factors are really built into the specific employer and the
Sara Dalsfelt: specific role, but I'm trying to say it in an example. Right, so the experience
Sara Dalsfelt: should be one click. You should be in the ad, there should be no
Sara Dalsfelt: fluffy 1 billion clicks through a
Sara Dalsfelt: form which is not mobile
Sara Dalsfelt: assessed or it's not built for mobile friendly, should be no
Sara Dalsfelt: account created, should be ideally not a single cover
Sara Dalsfelt: letter or CV uploaded either. It should be a super
Sara Dalsfelt: smooth journey based on finding potential with
Sara Dalsfelt: assessments and tests and screening based on science in order to really
Sara Dalsfelt: make sure what's getting through is relevant for this role
Sara Dalsfelt: and that you are opening up for potential and transferable
Sara Dalsfelt: skills and everything that you need in order for have a thriving workforce.
Sara Dalsfelt: Right, so, same as with Airfire. One, two clicks,
Sara Dalsfelt: super secure, easy checkout, making sure my bank details is all
Sara Dalsfelt: secured. I don't feel stressed about this decision. I have to have an immediate
Sara Dalsfelt: confirmation. You did a great job, Joe. The airfire is coming.
Sara Dalsfelt: Or thank you so much. We have everything we need in order to process you
Sara Dalsfelt: further for Head of Universal Tesla, and that should be the canned
Sara Dalsfelt: experience and you should then continue with your life, keep scrolling instagram
Sara Dalsfelt: and go have dinner with your family. But
Joanne Lockwood: we know that isn't the typical candidate experience in the world, is
Joanne Lockwood: it? We know that's a very curated, very
Joanne Lockwood: contemporary, forward thinking way of dealing with things. But candidates
Joanne Lockwood: generally have a very poor experience. I'm sure many
Joanne Lockwood: people listening here have been experienced. The Blunder Bus approach on
Joanne Lockwood: LinkedIn, recruiters sending us, are you interested
Joanne Lockwood: in this, are you interested in that? Or you look great for this role,
Joanne Lockwood: picking something that you did 20 years ago as a keyword,
Joanne Lockwood: that's still the candidate experience. We've gone out there and it
Joanne Lockwood: builds a lack of trust into the recruiting process. And I believe it's like
Sara Dalsfelt: it's no blame on the recruiters, no blame on people
Sara Dalsfelt: just trying because they're so pressured. Like, there's an insane amount
Sara Dalsfelt: of pressure on recruiters right now. They're supposed to be AI engineers,
Sara Dalsfelt: marketing experts, sales experts, like, all these. There's so much
Sara Dalsfelt: pressure on them. But what I do want to challenge and what I like to
Sara Dalsfelt: discuss is how come we're not valuing our candidates
Sara Dalsfelt: and building processes and experience just as we would with
Sara Dalsfelt: super valuable customers? Because it's the
Sara Dalsfelt: same. Imagine, again, an ecommerce, a travel
Sara Dalsfelt: agency, treating their desired customers
Sara Dalsfelt: like most companies does with their candidates
Sara Dalsfelt: in revenue loss. Just imagine the figures in revenue
Sara Dalsfelt: loss and it's not like in terms of buying
Sara Dalsfelt: stuff or being a customer, I could still go
Sara Dalsfelt: back some years later and like, I want air fryer. Like, I don't care,
Sara Dalsfelt: it's a good deal, I'm going to buy it. I'm not that sceptical about the
Sara Dalsfelt: brand selling the air fryer, but when it comes to hiring, if
Sara Dalsfelt: I've had a bad experience with a brand, they're doomed.
Sara Dalsfelt: They're out the majority of candidates will never apply
Sara Dalsfelt: again. So it's not just that you're turning them off,
Sara Dalsfelt: you're ending forever a relationship. And it's
Sara Dalsfelt: not just a lot of people come to market saying there's no
Sara Dalsfelt: candidates. How come you're thinking you're
Sara Dalsfelt: sprinking each day
Sara Dalsfelt: you're working against yourself? So I think the bigger question should
Sara Dalsfelt: be, yes, of course, everyone should have the ideal can experience and everyone
Sara Dalsfelt: should work with the best tech out there. But still, you have to
Sara Dalsfelt: see and approach your candidates as valued
Sara Dalsfelt: customers and you have to make sure that is the experience, else why
Sara Dalsfelt: are you in recruitment?
Joanne Lockwood: Most? I think I think 65, 70% of
Joanne Lockwood: the UK workforce work for businesses that are
Joanne Lockwood: ten people or less, or certainly small businesses, micro
Joanne Lockwood: businesses. What we're talking about
Joanne Lockwood: here is an enterprise. It's a
Joanne Lockwood: corporate, large organisation budget,
Joanne Lockwood: I guess. How do smaller organisations
Joanne Lockwood: get into something like this? Because first of all, it's a
Joanne Lockwood: mindset change, isn't it? Recruitment, marketing and what you're talking about is a real mindset
Joanne Lockwood: change versus the old. I'll put it on typical
Joanne Lockwood: job site and get thousands of applications from around the world
Joanne Lockwood: that very few are actually relevant. We latch on
Joanne Lockwood: the biases, kick in that person's name, that person's education.
Joanne Lockwood: We're suddenly biassing and going, oh, look, there's a couple of white people
Joanne Lockwood: here with English handing names who live in the local town. They'll be
Joanne Lockwood: perfect. That's what goes on at the moment in the majority of the world, doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? I want to
Sara Dalsfelt: challenge when it comes to investing in
Sara Dalsfelt: inclusive strategies or tech or platforms, it's like, what would
Sara Dalsfelt: it cost you to not get this diverse workforce into
Sara Dalsfelt: the company? Right? So that's always the calculation. But,
Sara Dalsfelt: yes, we work with companies that are hiring for very complex
Sara Dalsfelt: roles and volumes of roles that's like mainly our target audience,
Sara Dalsfelt: but it still could be companies doing 30 hires a year if it's like
Sara Dalsfelt: pharmacists or It specialists or salespeople or
Sara Dalsfelt: service personnel or whatever. So
Sara Dalsfelt: either way, because what I'm coming from
Sara Dalsfelt: is I had this brilliant live stream yesterday on my LinkedIn Live channel together with
Sara Dalsfelt: Wolfgang Brickwetter. He's an HR
Sara Dalsfelt: specialist and recruitment experience person
Sara Dalsfelt: from the Doc region, and he's been doing recruitment trends reports for
Sara Dalsfelt: over 1015 years. And we went through a lot of benchmark
Sara Dalsfelt: data because there's nothing we love more than benchmark data. And when it comes to,
Sara Dalsfelt: like, what are the hiring budget or the marketing budget for this TA team,
Sara Dalsfelt: or how much are they spending on these channels, or what's their average? And
Sara Dalsfelt: we went through a lot of this data, and what was really
Sara Dalsfelt: interesting was even if you have a super tight
Sara Dalsfelt: budget for Bahuma marketing or employee branding, which you might have in the
Sara Dalsfelt: times we're in, what you don't get is
Sara Dalsfelt: the change here is in terms of what
Sara Dalsfelt: I said before. You're not in a war for talent. You're a war for attention.
Sara Dalsfelt: If you don't join the party now, it'll
Sara Dalsfelt: be exponentially more expensive next year
Sara Dalsfelt: and the year after that and the year after that. Because again,
Sara Dalsfelt: everyone is going into social recruiting. Everyone
Sara Dalsfelt: is understanding the need for the most epic candidate experience.
Sara Dalsfelt: Everyone is investing in this and if you're not joining the party, you're out of
Sara Dalsfelt: the game. So even with the tiniest recruitment marketing budget, and we looked into
Sara Dalsfelt: this cool benchmark data, I can send you some then later joe,
Sara Dalsfelt: even with the tiniest budget, you have to make sure these budgets are working the
Sara Dalsfelt: most efficiently for you. Building the talent pools, optimising the
Sara Dalsfelt: career page, not losing out on this valuable, relevant,
Sara Dalsfelt: diverse traffic that you are driving in some way, even if it's
Sara Dalsfelt: through search or outreach or automated
Sara Dalsfelt: process. With recruitment marketing, you have to make sure these tiny budgets
Sara Dalsfelt: work for you and you have to go where the candidates are. So I would
Sara Dalsfelt: naturally argue never to put all your eggs in one
Sara Dalsfelt: basket. My approach to hiring with tiny
Sara Dalsfelt: budgets either way, is multichannel. You have
Sara Dalsfelt: to understand that the persona the average social
Sara Dalsfelt: media user has, I think it's on average
Sara Dalsfelt: 7.5 somi apps that they
Sara Dalsfelt: use, so they live in a universe of social media,
Sara Dalsfelt: meaning LinkedIn is not your golden or silver bullet,
Sara Dalsfelt: meta is not your silver bullet. TikTok might not be a
Sara Dalsfelt: silver bullet, but there is several platforms where people are living. And
Sara Dalsfelt: if you build in a super smart tactic, you don't have to
Sara Dalsfelt: spend billions of dollars in building these candidate
Sara Dalsfelt: experiences. You just have to make sure that your EVP
Sara Dalsfelt: is not be left for everyone to experience. Because who will
Sara Dalsfelt: type in VVV?
Sara Dalsfelt: Mycareepage mycareepage, my career? No
Sara Dalsfelt: one. No one knows. And how would I even know that H M
Sara Dalsfelt: is one of the biggest It employers in the world? I think of
Sara Dalsfelt: H M as clothing, I don't think of H
Sara Dalsfelt: M as AI engineers. Right? So I
Sara Dalsfelt: wouldn't type in a career page because I would think H M is for
Sara Dalsfelt: clothing. There's all these differences in terms of mindset and how
Sara Dalsfelt: you have to approach shopping experience and online behaviour
Sara Dalsfelt: into incorporating that, into talent attraction. So I would
Sara Dalsfelt: still make sure my tiny budgets work for me,
Sara Dalsfelt: making sure I can collect the audiences, I can retarget the audiences, and I
Sara Dalsfelt: go broad on social media to make sure
Sara Dalsfelt: I can attract diverse potential.
Joanne Lockwood: So it starts this conversation with unearthing potential beyond the resume.
Joanne Lockwood: The CV. Yes. So I'm a candidate, I've got a CV,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm an employer, I want a CV. So how do I, as
Joanne Lockwood: a candidate settle myself? Because the
Joanne Lockwood: CV is a sales prospectus document. I actually
Joanne Lockwood: want you to be biassed for me, so I actually want the right bias.
Sara Dalsfelt: Isn't this so interesting? It's all made up from the beginning.
Sara Dalsfelt: I can chat, GBT, everything, right? So it's not
Sara Dalsfelt: even that's a problem. I want you to be biassed, but then
Sara Dalsfelt: again, are you assessing me on my readiness and my
Sara Dalsfelt: skills and everything that is me? So the whole thing, like the
Sara Dalsfelt: whole show, the whole charade of a CV is made up on
Sara Dalsfelt: non beneficial information for anyone, not
Sara Dalsfelt: anyone. So good point, though, in terms of
Sara Dalsfelt: how can I word you in this case, joe, you're going to challenge Tesla for
Sara Dalsfelt: Head of Universe, right? You want Tesla to hire you without a CV.
Sara Dalsfelt: What I encourage candidates to do is to actually
Sara Dalsfelt: question one, are you giving everyone
Sara Dalsfelt: the same chance for this job? Two,
Sara Dalsfelt: include assessments and testing as early as
Sara Dalsfelt: possible in the process. That means you're not weeding out
Sara Dalsfelt: anything, you're building to include people
Sara Dalsfelt: and give everyone the chance. And as long as you explain,
Sara Dalsfelt: it's super easy to have a little box of information in your
Sara Dalsfelt: online application journey saying, hey, we're putting our tests super early
Sara Dalsfelt: in the funnel because we want everyone given the same chance. You as well, make
Sara Dalsfelt: sure this will take you five minutes, sit somewhere comfortable, take a coffee
Sara Dalsfelt: and let's get started with a test. Make sure it's
Sara Dalsfelt: built to include, not to exclude.
Sara Dalsfelt: And from there,
Sara Dalsfelt: if you want to use your gut feeling or if you want to have a
Sara Dalsfelt: look at a CV, do that later. Again,
Sara Dalsfelt: I always advocate and everyone does this, I believe the community is great.
Sara Dalsfelt: We always talk about challenging hiring managers and I don't think
Sara Dalsfelt: no recruiter ever on this earth have missed the fact that you have to be
Sara Dalsfelt: a strategic business partner. I believe everyone knows this, and I believe everyone does
Sara Dalsfelt: what they can about this, but it's still if you've done everything
Sara Dalsfelt: right from the beginning opened up the
Sara Dalsfelt: funnel, making sure you have automated an assessment and testing tools, making sure it's not
Sara Dalsfelt: heavy lifting, but you're still processing relevant talent pools. So when
Sara Dalsfelt: you get involved, it's still relevant to the role. And for
Sara Dalsfelt: diversity? Meaning if you've done everything right,
Sara Dalsfelt: your funnel is built on the best possible, inclusive way, you will end up
Sara Dalsfelt: with five equal good candidates.
Sara Dalsfelt: So if a hiring manager must, in this world,
Sara Dalsfelt: use their gut feeling, they can I mean, I'm not recommending it,
Sara Dalsfelt: but as a last step on paper, they can,
Sara Dalsfelt: right? Because you've built the process, securing that
Sara Dalsfelt: potential and diverse applicants had
Sara Dalsfelt: the chance to come through all the way to the last submission.
Sara Dalsfelt: Right? So that is
Sara Dalsfelt: my whole thinking. I believe
Sara Dalsfelt: you have to challenge the fact
Sara Dalsfelt: how employers are assessing you. And I know this is
Sara Dalsfelt: happening today just as review sites or glassdoor or
Sara Dalsfelt: whatever, transparency into the hiring process is happening and it's going
Sara Dalsfelt: to blow up more than ever. But candidates are challenging
Sara Dalsfelt: employers how they're assessed and how they're measured, on how
Sara Dalsfelt: they're a match for this opportunity.
Sara Dalsfelt: And I believe we should be prepared and we should definitely
Sara Dalsfelt: proactively approach the candidate market with this. And we want
Sara Dalsfelt: to make sure that we don't build or
Sara Dalsfelt: go back to this charade where someone has a charade
Sara Dalsfelt: application paper in their hands and I have a charade
Sara Dalsfelt: assessment strategy where I spend 6 seconds
Sara Dalsfelt: sifting through a CV and like, hey, it's a good match. Yeah, I can read
Sara Dalsfelt: his name. Perfect. No picture, not going to use it. Right?
Sara Dalsfelt: So there needs to be challenge, the whole thing needs to be
Sara Dalsfelt: challenged from both ends. And I believe
Sara Dalsfelt: employers have to have the answer. Why are you assessing me on my
Sara Dalsfelt: cover letter? Have to have the answer.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, the ability to write a word document shouldn't be the basis on your. Ability
Sara Dalsfelt: to rule the universe with generative AI. We're like, there's no
Sara Dalsfelt: substance. Mean, imagine
Sara Dalsfelt: the risk Tesla would take with you, Joanne. Not with
Sara Dalsfelt: you, of course, but I meant with your cover letter built on chat GPT for
Sara Dalsfelt: Head of Universe. Imagine the risk if they were to assess you
Sara Dalsfelt: on this piece of paper that you've been creating. Five minutes
Sara Dalsfelt: with Generative AI. It's no substance, it's no relevance, it's
Sara Dalsfelt: nothing. So I think the whole thing should be challenged
Sara Dalsfelt: from both ends. So this process is
Joanne Lockwood: completely fair. It's bias, it's mitigated as much as we
Joanne Lockwood: can based on behaviours, it's based on competency, it's based on
Joanne Lockwood: potential, not based on yesterday, it's based on tomorrow. All the kind
Joanne Lockwood: of great things we know. But if my organisation has
Joanne Lockwood: a gender equity problem, a pay gap problem, disability
Joanne Lockwood: gap problem, or an ethnicity problem,
Joanne Lockwood: if I can't bias the process towards female
Joanne Lockwood: hires, or towards people of colour, or towards people with disability,
Joanne Lockwood: I'll keep hiring, probably in the same ratio, or I
Joanne Lockwood: won't change the ratio enough to fix my gap. Fix my ratio. The leaking
Sara Dalsfelt: bucket. How do I
Joanne Lockwood: influence the funnel? Naturally? I mean, this is the big
Sara Dalsfelt: question, right? And I believe there's so many great people out
Sara Dalsfelt: there discussing this and having the best answers ever.
Sara Dalsfelt: But of course you can't fill a leaking bucket with
Sara Dalsfelt: relevant applications if there's no foundation or
Sara Dalsfelt: environmental support for them to stay and thrive, right?
Sara Dalsfelt: So you have to look internally.
Sara Dalsfelt: Everyone is like you have to start with this first. I want to challenge and
Sara Dalsfelt: say that you can have two thoughts in your brain at once. We
Sara Dalsfelt: can have parallel activities happening, right? So there should
Sara Dalsfelt: always be an ongoing strategy and work for making
Sara Dalsfelt: sure everyone feel that they can turn up to work as their
Sara Dalsfelt: authentic self, they're supported as their authentic self,
Sara Dalsfelt: or as I said, unapologetically myself, right?
Joanne Lockwood: We're talking about here is the employee experience, the retention
Joanne Lockwood: element. Get my retention, get my employee experience, right?
Joanne Lockwood: Primarily. Then go to market that's with air fryer Joe.
Sara Dalsfelt: What if I send you the shittiest old McDonald's
Sara Dalsfelt: frying super stinky thing to you and like, eh, it's an air
Sara Dalsfelt: fryer, whatever. It doesn't matter if you had the best online experience,
Sara Dalsfelt: right, if the product, if the reality then is
Sara Dalsfelt: met with a fraud. Right. So obviously,
Sara Dalsfelt: obviously you have to clean your house first, obviously. And you have to
Sara Dalsfelt: where you I believe what you're doing, Joanne, is making
Sara Dalsfelt: sure this is incorporated into the business,
Sara Dalsfelt: OKRs? It's not just a value proposition, it's not just a
Sara Dalsfelt: ta KPI, it's incorporated into our business
Sara Dalsfelt: KPIs. And this is ever
Sara Dalsfelt: have in terms of seasons. You could have a season of
Sara Dalsfelt: great hiring and great thriving and people staying for
Sara Dalsfelt: long, but then all of a sudden a whole department would quit because
Sara Dalsfelt: of XYZ and you have no diverse
Sara Dalsfelt: representation at all because of XYZ. So this is ever
Sara Dalsfelt: ongoing and no, naturally, you cannot build the best
Sara Dalsfelt: online experience for candidates if it's met with the worst
Sara Dalsfelt: offline experience. I mean, that's just a waste of everyone's
Sara Dalsfelt: time, money and happiness.
Joanne Lockwood: I think what I'm hearing saying is you got to get yourself right. You got
Joanne Lockwood: to be a look in the mirror. You're selling who you are. You're
Joanne Lockwood: not selling something fake and inauthentic. You got to be walking the
Joanne Lockwood: talk anthropologically yourselves as an
Joanne Lockwood: organisation, but that still says you've got a 70
Joanne Lockwood: 30 gender ratio.
Joanne Lockwood: In my mind, you got to hire two women for every men, every man, otherwise
Joanne Lockwood: you're not either not fixing the problem or the problem is getting
Joanne Lockwood: worse. That's a real challenge. When we're looking at
Joanne Lockwood: unbiased or debiased or anonymized
Joanne Lockwood: recruitment processes, the ratio is likely to
Joanne Lockwood: not change much. Exactly. And the question of
Sara Dalsfelt: representation,
Sara Dalsfelt: because the outcome is not status quo, right. Our
Sara Dalsfelt: starting point is not equal. Our starting point was
Sara Dalsfelt: never 50 50 male female gender
Sara Dalsfelt: equality. Right? So we have to work
Sara Dalsfelt: from a starting point where I don't know the figure, but if it's
Sara Dalsfelt: 70% men in organisation and 30% women, that's our starting
Sara Dalsfelt: point. So then we have to have representation, and I
Sara Dalsfelt: believe boxing women and men
Sara Dalsfelt: in or grouping or all this
Sara Dalsfelt: stuff could be hurtful in the long run. But as
Sara Dalsfelt: a starting point, we have to have an active
Sara Dalsfelt: strategy in terms of making the foundation where we are
Sara Dalsfelt: equal. So naturally we have to approach the fact that,
Sara Dalsfelt: yes, there's going to be a lack of diversity or gender diversity
Sara Dalsfelt: or all parts here, and that needs to be taken
Sara Dalsfelt: into acknowledgment when you build the process and how you assess and how you
Sara Dalsfelt: again, make sure you have the most diverse teams in your
Sara Dalsfelt: company. But there's also a danger
Sara Dalsfelt: in labelling right.
Sara Dalsfelt: In hiring as well, in the long run. But it's a very interesting
Sara Dalsfelt: question and it's an important question. And I think as to
Sara Dalsfelt: point, the starting point was never equal to
Sara Dalsfelt: begin with and that needs to be taken into consideration when you build
Sara Dalsfelt: your strategy. I think you said it earlier, you don't just
Joanne Lockwood: do one thing, you got to fix your
Joanne Lockwood: you got to sweep the floor, clean the room, get your company the
Joanne Lockwood: toxicity, the culture right. First, then you can do what you're talking
Joanne Lockwood: about here is the behavioural outreach via social media. Then if you got
Joanne Lockwood: a specific need around changing the ratio
Joanne Lockwood: of the demographic in your organisation, that's a
Joanne Lockwood: different targeted approach. Yes. You can use different recruitment, marketing,
Joanne Lockwood: different outreach solutions exactly. To
Joanne Lockwood: try and resolve gender or an ethnicity problem. Yeah. Messaging as well. Messaging as
Sara Dalsfelt: well. So, again, what I'm usually getting questions because
Sara Dalsfelt: we do volumes of job campaigns on
Sara Dalsfelt: millions of campaigns on social media platforms. And we're not saying you have
Sara Dalsfelt: to dance and be a TikTok company where you have to have a
Sara Dalsfelt: super polished EVP employer branding. We're saying what people want
Sara Dalsfelt: is your authentic own personnel, explaining to
Sara Dalsfelt: them why they get supported to be their authentic self at
Sara Dalsfelt: work. This is what the candidate market want. They on
Sara Dalsfelt: TikTok, do not want you can dance saying it if you want to, but
Sara Dalsfelt: it's not expected. We want authentic
Sara Dalsfelt: human connections. And just as with the shopping experience,
Sara Dalsfelt: you want real reviews. Right, Joanne? You're looking at the reviews for
Sara Dalsfelt: the air fryer. You want to make sure it's a verified buyer. You want to
Sara Dalsfelt: make sure it's a verified person. It's not getting paid to do the review. Same
Sara Dalsfelt: goes for canned experience. You want to make sure yep. Okay. Hassan has
Sara Dalsfelt: worked in this company for four years. He's the head of engineer. He's been thriving
Sara Dalsfelt: in the company. This is why he stays. That's what you want to know.
Sara Dalsfelt: So, again, it comes down to authentic messaging, but the
Sara Dalsfelt: strategy needs to open up to attract
Sara Dalsfelt: diverse potential. And that comes down to a lot
Sara Dalsfelt: of these factors. It's in the messaging, it's in distribution, it's in
Sara Dalsfelt: the AI powered solution, it's in targeting, but it definitely
Sara Dalsfelt: must be supported by authentic content. No one
Sara Dalsfelt: cares about donuts or whatever people
Sara Dalsfelt: goes for benefits of work. I actually
Sara Dalsfelt: do well. I thrive with I'm having a puppy and I
Sara Dalsfelt: get a lot of budgets approved and we get a lot of new hires
Sara Dalsfelt: because puppy at the office is really popular. But
Sara Dalsfelt: that's just me. And I did not buy the puppy to get more hires. But
Sara Dalsfelt: it was a big plus. We've got to use different
Joanne Lockwood: sorts of marketing and puppies turn people on, cats turn people
Joanne Lockwood: on, children turn people on. Skiing. There's different ways of just
Joanne Lockwood: attracting people and say, oh, this company just get a
Joanne Lockwood: belongingness. Creating the belongingness, isn't it? Exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: Sara, we could talk all day. We will again
Joanne Lockwood: notice in future, I'm sure we'll do another podcast. We'll do a live stream sometime
Joanne Lockwood: soon. But in the meantime, how can people get hold of you?
Joanne Lockwood: You said you had a white paper or some research you can put in the
Joanne Lockwood: show notes. I'll put this in the show notes, absolutely. First of all, I will
Sara Dalsfelt: definitely link to Wolfgang Brickwedde's latest recruiting trends report because I
Sara Dalsfelt: believe everyone needs benchmark data. We also have our latest
Sara Dalsfelt: social recruiting trends analysis, which is really jam packed with
Sara Dalsfelt: how social media can help with inclusive hiring. And if they
Sara Dalsfelt: want to know more about adway, how we work and myself, it's just type in
Sara Dalsfelt: Adway AI and cheque out our talent attraction suite. And
Sara Dalsfelt: I am well addicted to LinkedIn, so I have my community
Sara Dalsfelt: there, I have a lot of engaged followers and I do a lot of live
Sara Dalsfelt: streams and discussions on there. So just type in Sara Dalsfeld on
Sara Dalsfelt: LinkedIn if you want to connect. And I'm happy to keep these
Sara Dalsfelt: discussions going. And that's what we do all the time, Joanne. That's where
Sara Dalsfelt: you thrive in the community and keep
Sara Dalsfelt: educating and challenging old ways of hiring, which I love. You're
Sara Dalsfelt: one of my favourites in the newsfeed. Thank you. I've got
Joanne Lockwood: all blushing again. Thank you. Thank you so much. And
Joanne Lockwood: thank you to you, the listener, for getting to the end staying this far. So
Joanne Lockwood: I really appreciate your engagement. And if you've not already
Joanne Lockwood: subscribed, please do subscribe and cheque out the back issues and the
Joanne Lockwood: back episodes as well. This is the inclusion bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S.
Joanne Lockwood: Share the love. Share it with your colleagues, your friends
Joanne Lockwood: and other people on LinkedIn. Of course, I've got other guests lined up
Joanne Lockwood: and I'm sure you'll be inspired by them over the next few weeks and months.
Joanne Lockwood: And, of course, if you'd like to be a guest as well, drop me a
Joanne Lockwood: line together with any feedback, suggestions on how we can improve.
Joanne Lockwood: That'd be fantastic. So, my email address
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk And
Joanne Lockwood: finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood. It has been an
Joanne Lockwood: absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next
Joanne Lockwood: time. Bye.