Ep 139: Maturing Recruitment and Recognizing AI-Ready Talent with Gary Hanley

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_00] Hey everyone, it's Bob. Welcome back to Elevate Your AIQ, your go-to source for insightful conversations on human-centric AI readiness, workforce transformation, responsible innovation, and the future of work. In this episode, I'm joined by Gary Hanley. He's the Senior Vice President of US Talent Strategy and Recruiting at MCS Group, a Belfast headquartered recruitment firm. Gary also teaches consulting at the graduate level at Northeastern University in my hometown of Boston. Gary and I talk about how AI is pushing recruiting away from simply filling open roles and helping them to help them.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_00] Gary and I talk about how AI-polished resumes are making it harder to see who candidates really are and what their potential really is. We also get into why pulling back on early career hiring is short-sighted, to say the least, and how trust between employers and candidates gets built over time through community and relationships. Join in for great insights on what it takes to find, assess, and attract AI-ready talent. And thank you, as always, for listening. Let's go talk to Gary.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_00] Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Elevate Your AIQ. I am your host, Bob Pulver. And with me today, I have a pleasure to speak to Gary Hanley. How are you today, Gary? I'm good, Bob. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Excited to dig in. We've had a few conversations over the years about everything going on where AI meets the talent space. And so I thought we would get into, well, there's quite a few issues that I want to make sure we cover, but I thought we could start,

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_00] Gary, with just you just giving my listeners a little bit about your background doing consulting work and then a little bit of responsible AI work, talent strategy. When we met, you were working with Northeastern University. They're in Boston and they've got a lot of great programs around AI and education. And so, yeah, I thought I'd let you just kind of give us the highlights of

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_02] your career trajectory to date. Well, I guess I would describe it as a non-linear career, right? Many would describe it as a non-linear career in that I've worked with a number of different sectors, whether it's predominantly tech. I've also worked for 10 years or so in government and I've worked in higher ed and I've worked in a number of different roles, but I started out getting a real solid grounding working in IT in large technology at Sun Microsystems. If anybody

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_02] remembers Sun Microsystems, it was an awesome place to start your career. And over a 10-year period, I got a lot of great exposure in different parts of the business, whether it was operations, manufacturing, logistics, sales, marketing, and finance, working on different internally built systems, which is interesting considering what's going on now in many organizations. And then

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_02] obviously working on some major ERP packages, but I transitioned from large tech into government for 10 years, right? Working with organizations, helping them expand internationally and specifically helping them expand to Northern Ireland. So I did that for 10 years, followed by five years of helping organizations on their global location strategy, global expansion and global business services. I

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_02] guess the one thread that's been consistent over the last 10 years is, you know, location strategy is talent strategy. So from that point of view, I've been helping organizations find talent and most recently in my role at MCS, I've been helping them hire talent as well.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So tell us a little bit about MCS, you know, group based in Belfast, right? But presence in all over, I guess, Western Europe, UK, and US, obviously, where you're leading the team here. So yeah, so just a little bit, a 30-second little add for MCS group, please.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_02] Thank you. Well, MCS group, as you said, is headquartered in Belfast. They've been in existence for about 18 years. I've worked with them in different roles and capacities for about 15 of those 18 years. They are, in the US, we focus a lot on technology recruitment. We focus a lot on engineering and technical roles, but we've recently added a go-to-market and customer-facing capability as well as more of our clients have asked for those roles over here. So the journey began

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_02] in Belfast for MCS and then expanded along with their clients, many of whom were US clients, right? In fintech, cybersecurity, and many of the organizations I was working with as they expanded into Belfast. And the MCS journey with those clients then expanded into London, into Dublin, and other places where these organizations were hiring. And then obviously back into the US where

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_02] many of their clients were asking, maybe they can help them in the US as well. In terms of a recruitment agency, I guess the DNA and founding philosophy of MCS is all around, you know, consultative partnership, working with clients to understand what they need and helping deliver talent to achieve those business outcomes. So I guess when you fast forward to today and in terms of what's been on with AI, that's a very central component of the day-to-day work we do with customers.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I feel like a lot of the industry around, you know, talent acquisition, recruitment has sort of followed that same path, right? Trying to move from, you know, transactional kinds of mechanisms into a more, I guess, higher order of capabilities and support and value creation, right? Everyone's trying

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00] to move up that ladder to be like true talent advisors with the help of AI, I suppose, both on the automation front and just more advanced capabilities to augment what, you know, recruiters and recruiting teams can provide. So do you see AI as being, you know, this enabler of that shift, right?

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, yeah, very much so. And I probably should have added, you touched on it as well. I also teach now part-time at Northeastern University, right? And the course that I teach is consulting. So I teach consulting at the graduate level. And that's an interesting parallel for what's going on in our industry, where some of the more transactional steps and transactional processes, for example,

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_02] sourcing and scheduling some of the initial steps in the process, I think the industry quickly identified these are the ones that will benefit most from automation with AI. And they'll both on an agency, foreign agency and both for talent acquisition teams within organizations as well. So that has placed a requirement on agencies in particular to focus on advisory services, to focus

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_02] on, you know, the in-depth knowledge they have of candidates and at an aggregate level markets. And that, of course, you know, is manifested and produced in services and solutions like market mapping, you know, location strategy, you know, benchmarking compensation, helping with role design, which is something we do quite a bit in understanding what, especially right now where the business

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_02] outcomes are so important. So having close relationships, partnerships, having the ability to have conversations ultimately with clients that can uncover the root cause of what they're trying to do as early as possible in the conversations is very much part of what recruitment agencies like ourselves are doing right now.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00] So when you think about the skills that people are looking for now, I mean, I guess you're seeing, I imagine you're seeing both sides of this, right? Like you need the, when you go in to work with a client, you kind of look and assess their own, you know, AI readiness, AI, you know, fluency. We can get

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00] into those definitions in a bit, but like, just seems like the, the teams at your customers need to up their own game. And then as they're doing the hiring, either for themselves or for their own clients, they've got to really think about how AI is shifting the, you know, what skills are in demand. And then, you know, the AI skills themselves become a part of the, of the sort of skills portfolio that

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00] you're looking for from, from any, you know, talent. So I was curious to hear your observations in the challenges with, with doing that or where, you know, you've seen some, some success where people are actually doing a decent job, you know, sort of assessing people's readiness for the modern workforce.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, it, it, it's a really good question and, and it's something that's obviously a work in progress, right? So it's something that, that organizations are actively doing and learning from it and making adjustments right now. The clients that I speak to very often, those that are maybe less anxious about it and would, would, would believe that they're doing what they need to do at this point in time. Often their strategy is multi-threaded. And what I mean by multi-thread is they're addressing skills through,

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_02] you know, a combination of, of internal and external training. They're, they're conscious of the learning, the essence that that's in, in this transformation in terms of the need and the ability and, and enabling people to learn, right? So they're, they're not just tackling it through recruitment. They're looking at recruitment alongside training. They're looking at, at skills development throughout their entire organization for every, every role they have. In, in the same way, they're looking

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_02] at recruitment at, at different stages of, of the career cycle. So they're looking at entry-level recruitment and they're looking at, well, well, how is that different in this context? They're looking at, you know, bringing in subject matter experts, the decision, whether it's contractor, you know, on a project basis or whether or not they will, they will have full-time resources doing certain roles. So there's a, there's a lot of questions out there. I don't, I don't see one

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02] consistent playbook other than the fact it's multi-threaded, it's customized. And, and, and as you can imagine the demand, there is certainly a war for talent in terms of the demand. Well, we can, we can get into, you know, literacy, influence and different things, but the demand for AI enabled talent is, it does feel like it's almost everywhere all, you know, all at the same time. It isn't just certain sectors of the economy or certain industries that, you know, it is, it is everywhere where software

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_02] is, is being written and, and fundamentally driving businesses, you know, so it's everywhere.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that you have a, you know, keen, I guess, uh, the seat that you're in being, you know, sort of one foot in academia, another in, in industry gives you, you know, this sort of dual lens of, you know, what's happening because you're seeing the impact to, I guess, more established, you know, industries, in some cases, regulated

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_00] industries. And then you've got, you know, the startup community, which of course is, is looking for younger talent that you may or may not have acquired some of these AI skills in, in school necessarily, but maybe they took it upon themselves to, you know, become, you know, what they feel is AI, AI ready. So you've got the, you've got the early career, you know, talent lens, you've got the experience, you've got the established industry, you know, lens.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_00] So I guess you got, you got more than two lenses. So yeah, I guess I'm curious, like, as you talk to your, your students, you know, how, how are they feeling about their prospects and do they agree that, you know, these are, these are skills that they absolutely have to, have to have to be competitive, whether the school is, you know, I guess, you know, I'm

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_00] providing that, that training, that upskilling and that coursework where they have to, you know, basically fend for themselves in that regard.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, it's, it's, it's a really good question. I, so I, in, in my teaching context, I teach at the graduate level and, and the students will come from a diverse array of, of, of sector backgrounds. So they can come from not-for-profits, they can come from government and, and military, they can come from financial services, legal, et cetera. And, and they come from, you know, many different countries, right? So, so from that perspective and they're, they're pursuing

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_02] different paths and, and I am looking at how they can understand the fundamentals of consulting, which is something I now kind of practice every day, right? In the recruitment industry, but, but also looking at the impact of technology and AI on, on consulting itself, which, which again is, is, is a day-to-day act, day-to-day activity. So, you know, Northeastern where I teach, Northeastern University is famous for experiential learning, right? Which as, as a concept means we learn

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_02] as much as possible from experience and practice and learn by doing. I have the benefit of, you know, having a lot of guest speakers from different industries come in to, to speak. And, and I think that's key people coming in from, from different professional environments and, and they're sharing with them what's going on right now in, in their particular industry, in their sector. Many of those as well had non-linear careers, right? So they have the ability

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_02] to move across sectors at different stages of their career and, and be successful in, in each step. And it's interesting, the mindset that, that they advocate, the mindset of, of continuous lifelong learning, the mindset of curiosity, humility, right? To learn all, all things which consulting or recruiting in an international context, it's, it's all stuff you do on a, on a daily basis,

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_02] being able to identify the root cause of the problem. So what is the organization looking to achieve? And very much right now it's about agencies like us, less about give me an open role and I'll come back with three candidates. It's, it's discussions around, well, what's the root cause of what you're looking to achieve here? How are other similar companies doing it in the markets in which you're, in, in which you're trying to, to recruit and, and hire people. And

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_02] some, some really key questions like, how do you hire for roles that you're not sure if that role will be there in 18 to 24 months? So there's a, a sense that you are hiring for skills that are more sustainable, even if the role for that particular person or candidate will change. So you're, you're looking at, you know, this person may have multiple roles in a short space of time at an organization,

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_02] but are they, you know, are they a good fit culturally for the organization's culture? You know, do to have that learning mindset, innovative mindset so that they can kind of transform and

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00] adjust and as the organization itself is transforming. Yeah. I mean, I think that ties to the, the, the need to shift as we were talking about before from this sort of transactional, you know, relationship, I've got to fill this particular wreck. There's this, this urgent need and I'm going to, you know, one at a time sort of, you know, fill these, fill these seats and hope that these are the right people and hope that they stay and hope that they have, you know, the, the career aspirations to,

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_00] you know, grow with the company and things like that. But, but you're, you're pointing to one of the questions I was going to ask you about like part of the, the talent advisory work, part of that consultative mindset in talent is really thinking about the overall workforce strategy. This role is going to change. We know this role is going to change, you know, somewhat quickly. Will this

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_00] person be able to be, you know, potentially take the sort of, at least a temporarily nonlinear, you know, kind of, you know, trajectory to the, to the organization like you and I did in our careers and can you adapt, right? Can you learn and adapt and grow and take those transferable skills to some of those other domains? And I think a lot of the AI skills being comfortable sort of working

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_00] with AI is a subset of those transferable skills, right? Like you're not learning necessarily AI in a particular industry, in a particular domain. Like you're not sort of pigeonholing yourself into, backing yourself into a corner career-wise because you're basically, the things that you're learning have transferability and replicability, you know, elsewhere across the organization.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_02] It's a really valid point because, because recruiters will speak to both candidates and, and organizations. So, you know, even on the candidate side, you know, conversations around why this is a good opportunity and, and being able to tell, I guess, the organization's story, particularly the organization's transformation story. So very often, you know, we say a candidate will buy our strategy before they'll, they'll, they'll kind of accept a role. They need, they need

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_02] to understand clearly. And so we will work extensively with clients to make sure that we can articulate a, a clear, what their strategy is in clear and succinct terms for them on their, on their behalf. And we'll help coach them with, with that as well, in terms of filling in any gaps they have. And on the client side, it's, it's why, you know, to some extent the client is, sorry, on the candidate side, the candidate is selecting the organization to some extent. Many of the candidates

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_02] we're working with, of course, will have multiple offers at any point in time. So they're making a decision why this particular organization fits their career goals. We'll obviously coach candidates and, and discuss maybe what their career goals, you know, we'll help them with that as well. And these, these conversations impact salary, salary expectations. They can impact whether to be

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_02] onsite for a particular role or not. And, and, and decisions like that can, can be very impactful when you, when, when you're going through a transformation like this. And the fact that a candidate may over the next 12, 24, 36 months get, get some incredible experience in this particular role and really set up the next stage of their career. But, but that may involve changing expectations about whether,

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_02] again, it's a rotor onsite changing expectations about it, maybe what their, what their salary expectations are in the short term. And, and also from, from the client side, making sure that they understand, you know, candidate expectations in the, in the market and, and, you know, who they're competing against for talent. You know, we, we use the term talent war a lot, but it is highly competitive for certain skill sets out there and certain roles out there. And, and, you know,

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_02] a lot of the conversations we have with clients and organizations are, you can use a term like AI engineer and it could mean three different things in three different organizations. Right. So you're, you're making sure that, that all of that can be communicated clearly into the market. And, and of course, you know, the solution can be delivered as quickly as possible. So there still is an imperative. There always is an imperative for speed, right? There's always imperative to, to, to, to deliver a solution quickly.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_00] You bring up a couple of points around location strategy, where can you get, you know, competitive talent, worrying about compensation models. I mean, some of these, it seems like you've got a lot of complexity to how you support these clients, right? Because you are not just, so let's take the AI engineer example at how an organization defines that could be different from one company

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_00] to another, from one industry to another, from one, you know, location to another, perhaps. And then you've got compensation models for each of those. And then you've got AI coming in increasingly capable of doing certain, you know, tasks that, you know, were previously, of course, done by a talented human being. And so, so you've got a lot of, you've got a lot of variables to sort of

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_00] navigate. Is this something, I would imagine most organizations just don't have the sophistication in terms of, you know, strategic workforce planning and analytics. And do they rely on, on you for that? Or is it a, does that get triangulated through, you know, a vendor that provides like labor market intelligence? And I'm just curious how you bring all the, the, the data and insights to, to the

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_02] clients. Yeah. So data, data is a key component of it and it'll depend on the size of the organization. So for very large enterprises, they often will have a, you know, talented global talent analytics platform themselves that's customized to look at their current global footprint and they'll know the markets and the skills and, and et cetera, that they're hiring. So, but, but for many organizations, especially whether it's startup scale-ups, midsize organizations, they very often

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_02] will not have on-demand access to, to talent analytics like that. And in different markets globally, they'll rely on, I guess, their transactional experience over time, you know, and, and maybe, maybe what they hear through peer networks, et cetera, but they will, they will kind of learn by doing, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of what, what's going on. The problem of course is when you go through periods of pretty rapid change and transformation, like we have right

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_02] now, that the pace of change out, that the pace of change is outpacing the, the ability to, to learn from those transactions. And, you know, one, one of the challenges right now, when we mentioned AI engineer, for example, as, as, as an example of, of, of a role that can mean different things in different organizations. What, one of, one of, of, of the challenges,

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_02] that we, we see is, is that the technology generally that organizations are deploying is, is very high impact, right? They're not deploying AI technology for incremental gains. They're, they're deploying technology for strategic competitive advantage and, and to transform their business. That places an emphasis on the people they are hiring to lead those initiatives and, and implement

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_02] those initiatives and, and implement these tools. That means they're high impact hires. They're, they're, they're people that they're hiring into the organization that's going to have a significant, you know, transformational impact on part of their business. You know, the one thing we probably haven't touched on yet, that's complicating that process is, you know, the use of AI by candidates

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_02] to, to produce, you know, almost 100% customizable resumes to, to any open, open role. So, you know, you will have organizations, you know, express frustration with, with the fact that, you know, whether you want to call them fake resumes or, or, or resumes that are highly adapted to the job posting has undermined the value of the resume and trying to select the right person, right? So

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_02] just when we've got this new technology, everybody's trying to grasp and absorb and see what the impact of their business is seeking, you know, talent to implement those transformational projects, which is in high demand. And then, you know, alongside that, you, you have a, a, a parallel trend that's undermining the ability of the resume, which was kind of the cornerstone of the hiring process to help organizations find the right person. So that's complicating the overall hiring process

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_02] and something we come across day to day.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I have no doubt. You know, it's, I've never been a big fan of the resume because I think it's just not, hasn't proven to be an effective way to, you know, increase quality of hire and tenure and things like that. And, and nowadays, to your point, it's just seems like it's all sort of AI enhanced and exaggerated and

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_00] it's like that. Not that resumes weren't sort of padded before, but, but now you, you just can't, it's just not helpful, right? So are we going to continue down this path? And so I was going to ask you about other approaches, you know, like leaning more onto sourcing and, and referrals and things like that. But sourcing has gotten quite powerful with some of the AI capabilities there. And that's been going on

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_00] for, you know, probably three or four years now, at least. And so I just think from a candidate perspective, it's almost ironic, like when you're looking for these AI ready, you know, candidates, a lot of them are going to have these, you know, overly embellished, you know, AI enhanced resumes.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_00] And so part of me says, well, are you using AI responsibly and ethically, if you're doing that to, to your resume, I just don't, it's a weird situation, right? Like these people seem like they are AI ready talent, which is exactly what everyone's looking for. But at the same time, it seems like in some people's eyes, it could sort of backfire to say, why did you think this was

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_00] an appropriate use of AI? Don't you think we want to know, you know, how your brain works? And, you know, I don't know, it just seems like you're setting, setting the wrong expectation, maybe, or maybe this isn't the most trustworthy way to establish a potential working relationship.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, it's happening fast. And it, you know, it is, it is ironic to some extent that as people pursue, you know, AI enabled roles within AI enabled resumes, that to some extent, it might, might kind of undermine the clarity in the process. However, you know, again, back to one of the questions you asked earlier in terms of what are organizations doing, I'm definitely speaking to organizations and our entire team is definitely speaking to organizations

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_02] that have shifted more focus to other, other steps in the hiring process beyond, beyond resumes, if that makes sense, into assessments and, and, and making sure that, that the, the conversation I've even seen organizations, you know, specifically ask as, you know, really early in the process, ask clients to, to be able to demonstrate how they use AI as a thought partner, right, to kind of augment their thinking,

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_02] in particular, their critical thinking, right, and, and not just kind of replace it, so to speak. So I, I think to some extent, the candidates that can clearly communicate that, yes, through a resume and, and, I know it sounds ironic, but can come across more human, I guess, right? And, and again, you know, both of us have experienced nonlinear careers. So if you, if you go from different sectors, your resume always was challenged, right? It was always difficult to, to maybe articulate your,

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_02] your narrative and your value through a, through a resume when you were maybe in different industries. So, but, but trying to ensure candidates, there's clarity and, and, and ensuring that, again, organizations have a kind of robust hiring process in place to adjust for the fact that the resume may not be as helpful as, as it was in the past. So we're, we're, we're definitely,

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_02] we're definitely seeing that in organizations get clearer earlier on, on what they, on the examples they want from candidates and how they're using AI.

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_00] On the overall topic of responsible AI hiring, you know, how much of what you have to advise the clients on is, is some level of, of education. Like this isn't, these are appropriate uses, or this is the, the sort of governance and, you know, assurance that you need for the technologies. I mean, I'm, I think if I'm correct, Gary, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you guys

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_00] focus more on the talent side as opposed to the talent technology that someone might be implementing. Right. So, so, but still, I mean, I think just as they go about their day to day and, and are trying to find appropriate ways to use AI in the, in the process, I'm sure you have conversations where you talk about, you know, are your humans ultimately making the, the decisions

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_00] and holding themselves accountable for decisions throughout the, the recruiting funnel.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_02] Hmm. It's, it's, it's a really good question. It can depend on the sector as, as you, as you would imagine, you know, the use of technology will differ across different sectors, generally speaking. So, you know, if, if you're working in a sector that is less technology intensive and, and, you know, it's hard to find one that is less technology intensive, but I'm guessing public sector, healthcare, those types of, of sectors, you will see our, our teams are, are asked maybe to help on the tech

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02] side a little more than just on, on the talent side. And when, and much of our focus in the U S is on, on FinTech financial services, insure tech, cybersecurity, heavily regulated industries, right. Where, where governance over the data is, you know, pre-existed AI. So, but we're also consumers of this technology, right? So we evaluate new AI enabled platforms all the time. We're doing,

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_02] we're evaluating two major platforms right now. And what's interesting is, and this is maybe a tie back to, to, to maybe my consultancy class, where one of the guest speakers recently said, you know, when it comes to responsible AI and governance, you know, very much the altitude you're, you're discussing is, is the data, what happens to the data. So as, as we're evaluating tools and, and

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02] platforms or experienced consultants in particular are, are always zeroing in on, okay, the data, what happens with the data where, you know, how is this passed? You know, what is AI doing to this data? And, and how are you training your, your AI models on this platform to, you know, suggest, for example, matching technology of candidates to clients, et cetera. So, so we're consumers of

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_02] technology. So from that point of view, we address that and, and we deal mostly on the talent other than on the tech side. However, when I talk about advisory services that, that recruitment agencies are, are starting to augment right into their, their solution offering. And I talked about market mapping and location strategy and different things like that, you know, the hiring process and, and the

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_02] technology use in the hiring process go hand in hand. So as, as these, as these advisory services, you know, start to increase around the hiring process, the tech and the hiring process are, are hand in hand, especially in an international context where we know that regulations are, are going to be different across borders to regulations about using AI in hiring, you know, it was very explicit in the, in the EU AI act. Now, you know, right now I will have conversations

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_02] with organizations about adding an individual AI enabled role or maybe building, you know, greenfield teams. Should they do it in one particular location or should they do it in what, what we used to call their offshore locations. Now we kind of refer to them as globally distributed engineering teams, right? And globally distributing engineering locations. But, but those regulatory questions are, are not, you know, they're not necessarily coming up a whole ton right now. It's,

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_02] it's really a couple of clicks before that in terms of what roles do we need, you know, how do we design those roles, where do we hire those roles and, and, and kind of go from there. But I do expect 2027 and beyond, you know, issues like, you know, the use of AI and hiring will, will increase, right? Especially as, you know, any, any time, and we refer to something like a war on

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_02] talent, which means demand, you know, is significantly greater than supply that, that usually becomes a global recruitment exercise pretty quickly. They, you know, organizations need to, to look globally to find talent. One of the, one of the, I guess, downsides of not doing that in a timely way, not doing that, you know, organizations can over concentrate their hiring of critical AI talent in, for instance, one city or two cities.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_02] They generally, organizations generally do that in the cities that are the most competitive. So, you know, therefore risking attrition, risking salary inflation. And, and, and we've seen, we've seen that happen before 10 years ago when, when organizations were at an earlier stage, identifying the need to distribute that risk by distributing the, their, their, their engineering teams globally. So they didn't, they weren't over concentrated in Silicon Valley or over

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_02] concentrated in New York or Boston, Cambridge. Because as we know, there, there are, you know, back, back then it was, and it was very much the same, same organizations, even though they might have different names, you know, but back then you were, you were looking to avoid, you know, Facebook, you know, Amazon, Google, you know, vacuuming up large amounts of, of, of talent out of the market. And right now you, you have same or similar organizations who have, you know, much, much

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_02] bigger demand, much bigger resources that can come into a, a city and disrupt the supply and, and demand of talent there. So from any earlier stage organizations, as they're scaling, you know, they need, they need to be conscious that they have a kind of a risk adjusted strategy to make sure they can continue to source great quality talent, but, but not necessarily finding themselves competing with, with some of these, these, these massive, for instance,

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_02] right now, infrastructure players who have, you know, huge hiring requirements.

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the money ball analogy is, is a lot of it. Well, right. Like there's tons of great talent available if you know where to look, right. And if you don't have a, you know, you know, you know, in office, you know, mandate, then there's a lot of great talent out there. And I think the, the AI skills that are in demand, whether that's for a technical role

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_00] or non-technical role, I think all the more reason why you need to assess those, those sort of durable skills, right. Which as you're assessing talent. So yet another reason to not look at what someone did before on the resume and look at what they're, what they're doing now, how are they bettering themselves? How are they improving their own skills, their own knowledge? Who do they learn from?

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_00] How do they interact with AI in constructive, you know, ethical ways? And how do they, you know, how do they solve problems? How do they think critically? I think these are all the reasons that you need assessments and not just AI assessments, of course, just, you know, behavioral assessments, things that can give you a sense of how someone would work through a real, real world, you know,

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_00] situation, whether that's, you know, customer success or, you know, some internal, you know, domain.

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_02] And, and, you know, Bob, for many years, you know, some of, some of those questions could be answered or some of those questions were supported when you were trying to answer them by virtue of, you know, maybe a candidate worked at a similar organization prior or three organizations prior. And, and, and therefore, you know, there was, there was, it was a safe bet that, that they had similar organizational cultures and et cetera. If you look at it right now, and this happens a lot

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_02] when organizations are entering a brand new market to, for instance, stand up an engineering or development team, the, the candidates that they're speaking to may not have worked with organizations that are in the same sector there, you know, they might not be competitors or partners or, or, or, or clients even. But, but so very often, you know, the assessment process has to understand, well, did they work in a sufficiently similar environment? Did they have the right

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_02] kind of mindset? You know, was it, for example, a compliance driven environment? Was it heavily regulated industry? They, you know, that, that type of, of, I guess, expanded funnel has to come into the recruitment process in a brand new market like that. Well, to some extent, there's something similar going on with AI in that, you know, you can have an AI engineer, for example, with 18 months, 24 months, and then somebody who says, you know, we've, I've got AI experience for three years, but that doesn't

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_02] mean that three years is more valuable than the 18 months, right? It depends on what they were doing and what they were built. And the only way to really, you know, I suppose to uncover a lot of that is, is, is through the assessment by, by speaking to them and, and, and understanding what they built, what the outcome of what they built was and how it, how it demonstrated value to the business. But, but to the point you mentioned as well, how did they use AI? You know, where,

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_02] where did they feel like they would not use, you know, maybe the results they were getting from AI as quickly, where did they, where did they have to, maybe I won't say disagree with it, but where did they have to go back and make, make adjustments? And, and those types of kind of critical thinking questions, you know, they're not necessarily new. You know, when, when I've worked with organizations over the years that said, Hey, we're looking for a new location for a greenfield engineering team to

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_02] build a new platform and, you know, building a new platform in those types of situations very often required hiring people with, you know, innovative critical thinking skills that could figure out not just what needed to be done, but maybe a better way to do it. And so it's, it's not necessarily new in, in terms of looking for the mindsets that will better leverage AI. I think the curiosity is

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_02] the first, the first component of it, you know, being able to demonstrate because everybody's learning. So it's, it's really, whether it's a software engineer or whether it's somebody in logistics or, or any other part of the organization that's going to AI enable their role. And, and it's, it's interesting right now because, you know, the role that early stage talent graduates, what we talked about a little earlier, what role, how are the clients that I'm speaking to finding

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_02] the graduates that they've hired, we'll say in the last 12 months and, and how adept and suitable they are to come in and, and, and drive change in, in, in what they're doing through AI. And I've heard some really positive things. I've heard, you know, again, you know, with, with the right strategy in place within an organization, early stage talent is coming in really open and adept to these new, these new tools, right. They're taking to the tools right away. And there isn't,

[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_02] I guess, any kind of legacy in terms of how they've done things. They don't, they don't really have that in the past. When, and then coupled within an organization with, with maybe more experienced people that can maybe challenge the use of, of the tools and, and identify where, you know, maybe they add value, maybe where they, they stop adding value. You, you combine both of them together and they can be, they can be very powerful, but you know, it's encouraging to hear, although again, it's playing out, it's encouraging to hear. It's not necessarily,

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_02] you know, apocalyptic for early stage talent coming out into the market. They certainly have value. And, and I think very often what I hear is organizations are just trying to figure out what, what, what is the right strategy to take in what they bring to organizations and, and make sure they can get the most out of, out of, out of them and the tools they will be using. The other, I think

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_02] there's universal agreement in the organizations I speak to that, you know, stopping indefinitely to hire early stage talent is, is a bad thing, right. Whether it's consulting and the importance of kind of apprenticeship type roles over the years where people internalize what's going on and crunch the data and figure, figure out how the recommendations are made in consulting, whether it's any given industry.

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_02] I think everybody recognizes the importance of early stage talent, getting in and managing data and, and the number crunching, et cetera. If we're, we understand that that may be done a little bit better through technology right now, but that doesn't mean early stage talent, you know, you need a sustainable pipeline of strategic talent. So early stage talent is a critical component

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_00] of that, you know? Yeah, I think you're exactly right. You know, they have to learn how to better their, their sort of judgment in these different situations. They have to understand how context changes, you know, the path forward and they get that through experience. And so we can't sort of change

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_00] them those, those experiences in some ways. You sort of alluded to this before Gary around, like you, you get into, you'll get into this catch 22 that people have been experiencing for decades. Like everyone's looking for people with experience. Well, how am I supposed to get that initial experience if no one's giving me the shot? And so, so I think that, that still holds true, even in the age of, of AI augmented

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_00] work that, that still holds true. One of the things that I wanted to just hit, hit on around the, you know, attracting the right candidates and finding good, good talent is, and, and in time that to the responsible, responsible AI, responsible AI theme was, was just around trust, right? Like we need to ensure that

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_00] we're not just trusting the technology, but we're trusting each other to use the technology responsibly. And that's not just like amongst our colleagues or those in our ecosystem, but you know, Canada, we're looking for, for, for win-win situations here in terms of acquiring the right talent. We want people to stay. We want to

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_00] reverse this shrinking tenure sort of trend. We want to increase engagement, not continue to perpetuate, you know, decreased engagement. And, and so I just feel like the more transparent an organization can be with candidates through, you know, their own employer, employer branding and their own career pages and, and any kind of outreach that they do, whether that's for early tenure, you know, candidates or,

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_00] or otherwise, you've got to show people that, yes, we're using AI, but here are all the, the positive ways in which we're doing it so that we can facilitate these, you know, long-term, ideally long-term relationships in this win-win scenario. And so, so are your, are your clients like appreciating

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_02] that fact that that's needed? Absolutely. So, so establishing trust and you mentioned it's over time, right? So engaging, so, so some examples of, of, of what we've discussed with clients are, you know, clients, clients will often refer to, and, and I've been part of helping them build a passive pipeline, a talent, right? And this is, this is where you engage with, you know, you know, people

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_02] and, and they may not be candidates at that point in time, you know, they may have applied for a role. It may have not been the right time, but you're staying in touch with, you know, a passive pipeline of talent, which, which over time you've got, whether it's, you know, physical in-person meetups or whether it's, you know, engagement digitally through, through a community online, but engaging talent over times, it's helpful to build trust. Obviously there's transparency. This is, this is how

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_02] we're, we're using AI, but building trust, I think helps if it's over time. And, and you, you do see, you know, especially here in Boston right now at, at, at this moment, right? And as we enter October 26th, there, there is a tremendous amount of activity going on within tech communities, whether it's fintech focused, whether it's AI focused. And, and, and what you're finding is it, and what I'm finding

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_02] is that, you know, people, whether, whether they're candidates or, or whether they're, you know, consultant, recruitment consultants like ourselves are coming in contact and building relationships with organizations and in a networking environment, right? Which is really good because you get to know people, they get to know what you and your organization are about. And the same for candidates, you know, there's, these events are filled with, with people that are not necessarily looking for a

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_02] role right now, but they, they want to learn and they want to, they want to, they want to stay a part of the tech community. So I, I think there is a number of organizations, at least in Boston here, where I live, and I'm sure it's in New York and other major tech centers as well. I know it is, I was part of, of Tech Week in New York, and there's just like hundreds of events going on at any point in time. So I think, I think trust comes from repeated engagements, right? You know, and,

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_02] and obviously transparency and disclosure, but trust comes from repeated engagements and engaging, we used to call it, you know, passive talent pipeline, which again is really important when an organization is entering a new market to build kind of mission critical talent, like, like software engineers and product development. They, they, they need to look at a sustainable pipeline of talent beyond just the open roles they plan to hire in the next 6, 12, 18 months.

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_02] And I, I, I, I believe there's a lot of trust being built, you know, through networking events and community events like that. And, and that seems to be a lot of appetite from people, whether they're candidates for jobs. I, I'm seeing a lot of appetite within the tech communities for people to reach out and connect. I think because there's so much transformation going on within the industry and people are trying to learn from other people what their experiences are. And, and once again, whether it's in person or, you know, on platforms like LinkedIn networks become really

[00:47:23] [SPEAKER_02] important when, when, when we're going through, you know, periods of high uncertainty.

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I, you and I have both been to a bunch of conferences recently. I just think there's a, I think people always like in-person interaction probably. I mean, at least since, since COVID where, you know, people just were kind of cooped up and wanted the, the, the interaction and the relationship building and things like that. But, but I do think AI is, is contributing to that just because people are spending a lot of time in front of their, you know, devices. But the, the,

[00:47:56] [SPEAKER_00] the sense of community I think is, is really important. Certainly online community platforms have flourished, but, but there's really no replacement if you can, if you can get to, you know, in-person events, especially in your local community, which is obviously easier when you're in a, a big metropolis, like, like you and I are near, it makes it easier, but, but yeah, as your budget can, can allow it. And as you, your flexibility can allow it in-person events

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_00] are often where, you know, those relationships are either formed or strengthened. And you really get a sense that there are other people, you know, in, in the same boat. You're not on this AI journey by yourself. Everyone is trying to figure it all out. And so whether that's, you know, specific skills or where's the, where's the ethical line, where's the appropriate, you know, stopping point in terms of how AI is, is helping you think through, you know, decisions,

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_00] you know, everyday decisions or certainly talent decisions are, are high stakes. And so, so yeah, I think, I think community is really important. The, one of the things I wanted to ask you, Gary, just as we start to start to wrap up the conversation, like thinking about like the, the role, what is the role of, of a future recruiter, if someone were to, you know, go into the,

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_00] the talent space and wanted that experience, they wanted to be the person that really made an impact on people's lives and, and help them find new, new opportunities. Like what, how do you see all of this sort of developing and the, I guess the AI augmented recruiter, how do you see that evolving?

[00:49:36] [SPEAKER_02] Well, I, I think that the, the fun, the fundamentals for many in recruitment will be, you know, many people in this business love, love engaging with people, right? And, and they, they love the double bottom line of helping an organization find a role and, and helping a candidate find, find an opportunity. And that, that is something that has been a core component of,

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_02] of my career over the last 15 years or so is kind of identifying that double bottom line where, you know, an organization can, can hire an individual or build a team or tap into a talent pool and, and individuals then can get opportunity that otherwise, you know, may not have come their way. Right. So I, I do believe like there's constants in, in, in, in why people choose to come into an

[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_02] industry, but I am a firm believer and advocate that, you know, the technology will drive the industry more towards, you know, advisory, uh, understanding the business problem, right? So acumen and business and understanding what, what the core problem is. And, and, and, and, and if, if that's not obvious, then being able to very like a consultant and as a consultant get to the root cause of the problem,

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_02] being able to see, you know, the business challenge from multiple perspectives, whether it's from the finance perspective or the engineering perspective, et cetera, and, and understanding, you know, the value and, and, and, and what outcomes need, need to happen in the business because of a particular hire. Now, none of that's particularly new. It's just, just a question of emphasis, right? And I think it becomes more important as opposed to once again, less emphasis on things like sourcing, more emphasis

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_02] on problem solving, more emphasis on, on, on, on kind of discovering that problem, but also delivering the solution in a more sustainable way. So it's not a transaction. Hey, we will fill this role for you. It becomes, okay, well, what are your overall goals and how can we help you achieve that overall, overall objective on a, on a more repeatable basis? And, and there are again, within consulting, you know, things like recruitment process outsourcing, you know, there are solutions

[00:51:51] [SPEAKER_02] that, that help deliver value on a more sustainable, on a more sustainable basis. But, but I, I do fundamentally believe the job, the role, whether it's an individual or an agency is, is becoming more advisory and, and helping at times solve a problem where, where, where, where the outcome is not obvious, right? As opposed to we need this role to be filled, get me three candidates. It's, you know,

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_02] we're trying to do this. Okay, well, let's help you get there. Yeah. I mean, the people that I

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_00] talked to that have been in the industry for a long time, I mean, it seems consistent with what they've always looked for in a, in a good recruiter, you know, I should say great recruiter. It's, it's someone, because a lot of people, you know, you don't go to school to become a recruiter necessarily, right? So it's like, how do I, if someone were going to, we're going to pivot into that space, what are the types of skills that you would look for? And it, it seems, you know,

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_00] consistent, even if AI wasn't around, you'd be, these are people that solve problems. The organization has a problem. Here's the challenge. They, they need these skills and this, this talent and this kind of person or whatever, and let me apply my, my critical thinking skills. Let me sort of anticipate how the types of situations that this person may need to be in. Do they, they play well with,

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_00] with others? Do they, are they a culture ad? Are they going to be collaborative or disruptive? Are they going to be, you know, so it just seems like AI is just another way to sort of approach that, that problem solving, right? So how can I use AI to help me distill down, you know, the essence of this, this candidate or, you know, can it help me where I'm having trouble deciding between two similarly

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_00] qualified and, and appropriate, you know, candidates for, for this role? And oh, by the way, these are the other roles that this other group is, is hiring for. And I know those teams work together. Maybe we should pull someone from that team into the interview process for this other role, because we just, you know, want to mitigate the, any potential, you know, friction down the road. So.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_02] You're exactly correct. You know, the recruiters that I've, I've worked with and partner with over the years and obviously on a day-to-day basis now work with the kind of very strong interpersonal skills, right? In terms of engaging with candidates and, and organizations, very strong process skills, right? Because you got to deliver consistently quickly. But, but probably the one skill that AI is bringing to the table as, as, as the role becomes more advisory is data, is the ability to look at data,

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_02] aggregate data to be able to understand, for instance, a market and, and be able to understand what's, what's going on. And, and that data aggregation and making sense out of whether it's a particular hiring campaign for an individual or a team, that, that is quickly becoming part of, of the skillset. So you can, you know, ultimately describe, explain and predict what's going on in

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_02] a, in a market for a client. And, you know, you'll always need that, you know, the storytelling part of it, I think is vital. I, I often recommend to organizations as they kind of extend their hiring beyond and they start to scale up, they start hiring people from different organizations. Maybe the organizations are significantly bigger than their organization, but, you know, very often you find a founder, you might find maybe, maybe somebody who was a founding member of their marketing team

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_02] and, and very often it's good to introduce them into the recruitment process so they can tell the story of the organization and, and ensure that the candidate is, and that dialogue ensures the candidate is, is a good fit for, for not just where the organization is right now or where they've come from, but where they plan on, on, on, on going as well. So absolutely, you know, that the recruiter can proxy that at times being that, being that storyteller. Well, Gary, thank you so much for spending

[00:55:55] [SPEAKER_00] some quality time with me, really insightful conversation, greatly appreciate it. Any, any final thoughts? I'll definitely put your, your LinkedIn, you know, URL in the, in the show notes and link to MCS group and any, any other final thoughts or advice for my listeners?

[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_02] Really enjoyed chatting with you today. You know, everything, regardless of how high tech we've become and how automated, everything begins with a conversation. So I'm always open to have conversations. If somebody has a question or, or maybe a, an insight or something to bounce off of all, all, all good things start with conversations, right? So thank you for the opportunity being here today and it's been great catching up and look forward to a, maybe meeting in person at one of

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_00] those networking events pretty soon. That would be great. I'm always looking for excuses to come up to Boston, so I'll keep you posted. Thank you, Bob. All right. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you next time.