Ep 137: Trading AI Hype for Evidence and Education in Talent Tech with Hayley Skivington

Hayley Skivington began her career in recruitment and has come full circle as Head of Product at Oleeo, where she sits at the intersection of product vision, commercial strategy, and the realities recruiters face every day. In this conversation with Bob, she explains why her role has expanded well beyond building features: with fear of job loss, litigation, and getting it wrong still widespread, vendors now have to hold customers' hands as educators and trusted advisors. The two dig into what responsible AI looks like in practice for a company serving government, policing, and financial services, and how Oleeo competes in a crowded market where ERPs, HCM suites, and AI startups all want a piece of recruiting. Hayley also offers an inside look at how Oleeo builds AI fluency across its own workforce, and Bob draws parallels to the early days of corporate social media bans. They close by looking ahead at how recruiters' work and skills will change as their tools become more connected.

Keywords

Hayley Skivington, Oleeo, responsible AI, explainability, talent acquisition, applicant tracking systems, AI literacy, candidate experience, EU AI Act, ISO 42001, vendor evaluation, shadow AI, Police Scotland, interoperability, cultural alignment, recruiter upskilling

Takeaways

Surfacing the evidence behind AI screening decisions gives recruiters confidence and gives candidates feedback to improve future applications.
Buyers adding AI features increasingly need sign-off from security and IT compliance, so vendors should equip them with ready-made documentation.
Integrating with existing systems like Oracle can deliver AI value without the cost and upheaval of replacing an ATS.
Police Scotland went from treating any AI use as cheating to cutting email inquiries by roughly 30% within weeks, freeing time for candidates navigating medicals and vetting.
Lunch hackathons and peer-led sessions spread practical AI know-how faster than formal training alone.
Hayley expects recruiting tools to converge with collaboration and analytics platforms, pulling HR, talent management, and talent acquisition closer together.
Recruiters should build skills in managing knowledge bases, evaluating compliance risk, and handling candidate appeals.

Quotes

Whenever anybody comes to us with anything, we always say, what's the problem? What are we trying to fix?
You don't need to rip everything out. We can complement your technology stack, but help you solve that problem that you've got that your current technology can't do.
We run a thing called the AI Forum and that's all about education. I'm not going there to talk about my latest product or why you all need to buy it from me.
Those simple tools... can be the light bulb moments in organizations that are really risk averse because a chat bot feels quite friendly, right?
People become strangely fond of whichever tool they're using the most.
My advice to recruiters is to be AI literate. Think about how you leverage AI within your role and really start to upskill yourself.

Chapters

00:01 Welcome and introductions

00:51 Hayley's path from recruitment to head of product

05:23 Building AI on strong foundations, not band-aids

09:06 Showing recruiters and candidates the evidence behind AI

13:29 Leveling the playing field and learning AI at home

18:43 Regulations, vendor evaluation, and shared responsibility

25:55 Competing in a crowded talent tech market

33:10 AI literacy inside Oleeo and the AI Forum

42:33 Police Scotland's journey from AI ban to adoption

45:20 Why banning AI leads to shadow AI

53:06 The evolving role of the recruiter