Chris Russell - The Future of Job Searching and Recruiting: AI, Market Chaos, & What’s Next

[00:00:04] Welcome to the HR Data Labs Podcast, now part of the WRKdefined Podcast Network. Join us as we explore the vital role of compensation, strategy, data, and people analytics in navigating today's complex business world. With the resources of WRKdefined, we're now bringing you deeper insights and actionable ideas from top experts. Now, here is your host, David Turetsky. Hello, I am your host, David Turetsky, and welcome to the HR Data Labs Podcast.

[00:00:32] And I'm here with my bold friend, Chris Russell. Chris, how are you today? Bruce Cohen- Doing good, my friend. Doing good. It's sunny out finally, and after three days of rain here in Northeast, I'm looking forward to getting outside later today. Chris Russell- Yeah. Let's talk about a morning of the day again that is absolutely full of rain every single day. Chris Russell- Except for yesterday, when it was 71 degrees and broadly sunny in the afternoon.

[00:00:59] Chris Russell- Yeah. It was like, what, two and a half days of straight rain was not fun. Chris Russell- Straight rain. Not even a break. Not a break for five minutes. Chris Russell- Yeah. Chris Russell- I'm sure the whole four actually had a spring festival where there were a bunch of vendors on the street and they closed off the entire village for the spring festival.

[00:01:18] Chris Russell- And I felt bad and I walked the village and bought as much as I could, but there's always only a pickle you can buy. And everyone was soggy. But how to go out and support them. Chris Russell- Yep. Bruce Cohen- So Chris, let's talk about what's going on in the world with Chris Russell today. How you doing? Everything okay? Chris Russell- Yeah, I just got back from a Florida trip last week, doing some e-bike stuff. That's my side hobbies. That was fun.

[00:01:47] Chris Russell- And looking forward to a summer of content creation here for RecTech Media. Chris Russell- Awesome. I'll put a link to RecTech in the show notes as well so people can listen to the glance that is Chris Russell. Bruce Cohen- Yeah. Chris Russell- Before we do get into our topic for today, which is going to be a fun one, which is what is on the brilliant mind of Chris Russell. What's one fun thing that no one knows about Chris Russell other than the e-bike hobby?

[00:02:17] Chris Russell- Other than the e-bike hobby. Let's see. Chris Russell- You already came out. Chris Russell- Yeah, I know. I can't do that one again. I mean, I just do e-biking and I do this stuff. So it's hard. It's hard to pick one. Let's see. Fun fact about me. Gosh. I mean, I used to, I used to kayak a lot. I've gone hiking as well. Chris Russell- There you go. Chris Russell- I did a hike with Mike.

[00:02:36] Chris Russell- Jeff Dickey Chasens used to be called the job board doctor. So he moved to Connecticut recently. So he and I met last weekend actually for a hike up in New Haven there on the West Rock and had a great, great time looking at the cliffs over there and stuff. So I do like hiking. Chris Russell- That's cool. Chris Russell- Do you take a lot of pictures when you hike? What's that? Chris Russell- Do you take a lot of pictures when you hike or is it just a- Chris Russell- A few. Chris Russell- A few, yeah. Chris Russell- Okay.

[00:02:59] Chris Russell- I try and go to a hike that has like a, you know, a view or something or a cliff or a lake or something like that, you know? So something to look forward to. Chris Russell- Yeah. When I've gone on hikes, I've always tried to take as breathtaking pictures as I can because I love moralizing those things. And then look back and I go, wow, that was really neat. I got to go do that again. Chris Russell- Yeah. And then- Chris Russell- My TV, I got the Amazon photos and they pop up as like a screen. Chris Russell- Yeah. Chris Russell- So that's good. Cool. Chris Russell- That's really cool.

[00:03:29] Chris Russell- All right. Well, Chris, thank you for that. Awesome. To do the value, what we're going to do is we'll do a break and then we'll get into our topic of what's the role stuff going on in Chris Russell's mind. Chris Russell- All right.

[00:04:03] Chris Russell- So Chris, you know, a little a few ideas before we started recording. And one of the ones that we had talked about was that in the world of recruiting technology, there's really a lot of stuff going on. You know, we tend to think of recruiting technology as really Chris Russell-

[00:04:21] Bruce Cohen- But on the job boards, there's a lot going on isn't there? And there was a lot of really hot action going on. And a lot of people are upset, pissed, whatever you want to describe it. What is going on in the world of job boards?

[00:04:35] Chris Russell- Yeah, I just got back from the TA Tech conference, which is basically where most of the job marketplaces go to meet every year here in the US. And there's a couple of things going on. There's a lot of them are struggling. So the sort of the, like all the B players and an online job search, people like ZipRecruiter, Jobcase, those folks. Jobcase just let go of their CEO, Fred Goff.

[00:04:57] Chris Russell- They're down about 30 people now. They're just becoming basically this, you know, arbitrage, buy and sell job traffic company. So they've been struggling. They had big ambitions, you know, five years ago when they got $100 million in funding. And this last couple years of just slow hire environment has really taken a toll on a lot of these sites. Even they have ZipRecruiter and Indeed as well.

[00:05:19] Chris Russell- Although Indeed is now up again. But they're the other big story in the market where they're really starting to piss off a lot of their client base with their new pricing models and all these silly rules they have. They want the data now. So they want all the disposition data from employers. And so they're really sticking their hands in like every piece of HR data that they want to. And they're getting away with it because they're really the only game in town now.

[00:05:46] Chris Russell- And that's kind of where we are these days. Like it's, you know, Indeed and LinkedIn get 80% of the job ads spend these days when it comes to employers. And they're just throwing their weight around. They don't care about the employer anymore. They're making it harder in a sense for companies to do business with them, which that's not a good way to operate, I think, you know? Chris Russell- No.

[00:06:09] Chris Russell- Well, let me ask you a stupid question because I'm not an expert in TA, nor am I an expert in the job boards. But you got to imagine that with the learning economy is, there's a lot of people out looking for roles. There are a lot of roles and there are always too many people looking for a job. And the competitive market is really, really hot, still really hot.

[00:06:33] Bruce Cohen- Is it the fact that there aren't real jobs? I mean, that people are looking or that companies are just looking to fill their pipelines? Or is it just a general slowdown in the economy? Chris Russell- Well, part of the jobs of frustration is that there's so many applies now that I think Greenhouse just had a stat where it was something like the average job now gets like 240 applications, I think.

[00:07:02] Chris Russell- That's up 120 or something just a couple of years ago. So the influx of applications is really causing just more of a black hole out there for the seekers. You know, it's a big frustration. The other part is, you know, employers still, a lot of employers still value

[00:07:21] Chris Russell- Quality over quantity over quality, meaning they want to get as many applications in as possible, which doesn't really help the job seeker. Right? They should be filtering those applications much more at the top of the funnel. And, you know, in disposing those people who they're not going to hire right away. Chris Russell- How about disposing them? Do they just give the blanket five seconds later? Chris Russell- At the very least, just say no, right? Chris Russell- Right. Chris Russell- I don't know why companies have a hard time saying no to somebody.

[00:07:50] Chris Russell- Like, and that's all the job seeker want. Give me a yes or no. Let me know as soon as possible. Chris Russell- Right. Chris Russell- Right? Because I'm applying to, you know, one, two hundred jobs a month. Right? Let me know as soon as possible. That's what job seekers want. And employers are not giving that still. Some employers do, but the vast majority of employers just don't care about that part of the job search experience. And I wish they would- Chris Russell- The concept of ghosting has become, I guess, normal now for us. Chris Russell- Yeah.

[00:08:20] Chris Russell- In the job seeking world. Chris Russell- Yeah. And now the job seekers are doing it too, you know, because they've been ghosted for so long. Now you're hearing stories about that as well. But people not showing up on day one or whatever. Chris Russell- Wow. Chris Russell- Well, I mean, in the market, I can't imagine. Well, I can't imagine if you actually get a response from someone that's not. Well, we've reviewed your really amazing credentials. And dot, dot, dot.

[00:08:46] Bruce Cohen- I can't imagine getting an overview and not going on it, given where we are in the market. I mean, well, there are some people on LinkedIn who are, who are not only saying, listen, I've been out of work for two and a half years now. And I'm at my end. And I don't know what to do. Please somebody help me. Bruce Cohen- Yeah. Chris Russell- And I've never seen that level of desperation before at mass as I have now.

[00:09:10] Chris Russell- Yeah. And I think AI can solve some of these problems, David, you know, whether it's an AI interview process, because you can do that with every employee that comes, every person that applies or comes in, interview them right away now. Chris Russell- Why? Chris Russell- Right.

[00:09:28] Chris Russell- And I'm like, why not do that? Like, you're, yes, it's AI doing it, right? That's the negative. But at least you're getting in the door for the, for the seeker, right? You're, you're filtering them a little bit, right? So if I were a company today, I would just interview everyone with your AI, not call it and apply yet. Once you pass that screen, then become an applicant. Chris Russell- Right.

[00:09:50] Chris Russell- You say you reject the rest as soon as they do that interview, or maybe, you know, you set it so it's like, you know, a few hours after whatever. So it's not like, right, yeah, whatever. But yeah, I do it that way. And at least you're telling them right up front what's going to happen. And you're just making it much more quicker and much more transparent. Chris Russell- Sure. Chris Russell- Because that's what's lacking these days. Chris Russell- When you're giving someone something that they really desperately need right now, which is closure. Chris Russell- Yeah. Chris Russell- Right.

[00:10:19] Chris Russell- Like sending one of those resumes out into the ether. Chris Russell- And that's not, that doesn't cost the employer anything. Like, it's just a, it's a, it's a, it's a part of the workflow. Like, just create it. Like the tech is there to solve it. There's tech exists that can do this. But it pulls my, I've been doing this for 25 years and talking about this with my black hole forever. And it's never gotten better. But I see a light at the end of the tunnel anyway with AI that can actually do this and get rid of ghosting altogether, right? And being transparent and being, being upfront.

[00:10:48] Chris Russell- Yeah. Chris Russell- Doing an interview right away. It's, you know, and I'll give credit to companies like Greenhouse. They're starting to think about the job seeker more like their, their dream job they have on there. And they're, they're now kind of sort of vetting employers as well in their systems. Chris Russell- You know, as far as how quickly they respond to kids and stuff like that. So they're giving badges and things around that. So I'm trying to see some of that from the vendor side of things, which is great. Chris Russell- Yeah.

[00:11:14] Chris Russell- But at the end of the day, it's got to come from the employer in terms of that, that, that, that wants to actually make a difference there in that candidate experience.

[00:11:22] Chris Russell- Going back to the concept you were talking about at the beginning of the, the problems that job boards are having, are having right now. And I guess the question that's on my mind with that is, is it a fundamental business problem with what they're trying to do? Is it the economy? Is it the, the job market that the employers are working on right now? Is it the name? So if they're trying to figure out whether AI can actually do a lot of this work before they'll actually go and hire?

[00:11:51] Chris Russell- What's the slowdown caused by? And are we going to all of a sudden wake up one day and go, oh crap, we, we're a bunch of people. And then, you know, they've already pissed off so many people from there, from the way they're doing interviewing right now, or the way they're doing posting right now, that it's not going to change. Chris Russell- Yeah. Chris Russell- What's going on with that? Chris Russell- Well, I think the slowdown is, is a couple of factors. It's the uncertainty in the overall economy right now with tariffs, with wars, with all that crap in there.

[00:12:20] Chris Russell- They also overhired during COVID, the COVID era. Chris Russell- Yeah. Chris Russell- Well, but there's a new sort of, you know, mantra, it seems like among employers, which is slow hire, you know, was it slow hire, slow fire or something like that? Chris Russell- Amen. Chris Russell- Or low hire, slow, I forget the, the acronym now, but something like that, but they're doing more with less these days. That seems to be the, the mantra they're going out with.

[00:12:45] Chris Russell- From a job advertising perspective. And they're also seeing that the results are coming in from the secondary job boards, kind of dwarf what they can get off Indeed and LinkedIn. So they're, I guess they're putting more eggs in one basket, essentially. Chris Russell- Sure. From when they used to do, they spread it around more. There are things like programmatic and, you know, all the ad agencies have that to use as a, as a, as a tool. Chris Russell- And that's certainly useful, but the bulk of the spend still goes to sites like Indeed.

[00:13:16] Chris Russell- Is there, is there going to be a reconciliation like we had many years ago with Monster, where those septaloid boards or another source come in and overtake the market like Indeed and LinkedIn did? Gosh, how many years ago is that? Chris Russell- Maybe 10 years ago. Chris Russell- He's like 20 years old at this point now. Chris Russell- Wow.

[00:13:38] Chris Russell- But yeah, I mean, I think the failure, especially just like I said, like a zip recruiter, which I always point to, like they were sort of the number two, you know, behind Indeed, right? Chris Russell- Is it? Chris Russell- Market share, brand awareness. And they've kind of just faltered in their efforts to be that buffer against Indeed's power, right? Chris Russell- They just didn't take advantage of Indeed's missteps. Like where were they when Indeed came out with that 72-hour resume rule or application rule where you had to review the resumes within 72 hours?

[00:14:07] Chris Russell- That's just creating a burden on the TA team there. Chris Russell- Sure. Chris Russell- Like take advantage of that. Like come to market with a product that doesn't require that. You know, launch a transparent anti-pay per application campaign. You know, rebuild your ecosystem. Chris Russell- There's so many things ZipRecruiter could be doing to take advantage of all this, just in the pricing model. Like be transparent.

[00:14:30] Chris Russell- Like if I were a ZipRecruiter today, I'd say, look, well, because Indeed now you can't do any, you can't buy any, there's no organic free traffic anymore. I'd say, look, here's free organic traffic. Chris Russell- Pay to sponsor your job. It's very simple, transparent pricing. Like do that. Chris Russell- But they just, they haven't done any of that stuff. And I just, pulling my hair out, we'll have lift. Chris Russell- Well, you know, because we need a buffer. We need other sites to become a buffer for the Indeeds of the world.

[00:15:01] Chris Russell- Because that just, it creates more balance in the marketplace. And I've been, I've been hot after these guys for not doing that. So it's, it's disappointing. Chris Russell- Is it because of funding? Is it because of the economy? What could possibly be the reason why? Chris Russell- Oh yeah. Chris Russell- They spend a lot of money on, on advertisements. Chris Russell- Yeah. ZipRecruiter is a shell of what it once was. I mean, they were like $800 million company at one point. Now they're like, I don't know, $200, $250 million a year.

[00:15:27] Chris Russell- So they've really come along. They also have a lot of debt on their books. So that doesn't help. I don't know if they have any money to invest in the product at all. It doesn't seem like it because they're not coming out with anything new. Chris Russell- You know, Indeeds got all kinds of, they've made all kinds of acquisitions over the years, whether it's video interviews or stuff like that. They bought resume.com at one point, I think. Right? So they just haven't taken that. They bought it, they simply hired and just basically reused it for the traffic, you know?

[00:15:55] Chris Russell- So none of these players have taken advantage of that. I will say like Job Gets is doing some good stuff. They bought Snaggit Job, they bought some sort of second tier job boards and they're expanding their marketplace. They've been kind of aggressive in that respect. But yeah, it's a tough place. The economy doesn't help either. So- Chris Russell- No. But is it white collar jobs? Is it blue collar jobs? What are the, what is the green ask these days? Because we've seen a ton of hiring in the blue collar side, right?

[00:16:25] Chris Russell- No. Chris Russell- No. But the blue collar jobs are still as hot as they've ever been. And there's still tons of turnover there. So is it that those types of jobs just aren't bringing in the cash? Or is it that they normally rely on the white collar types of jobs for much of their traffic? Chris Russell- Yeah. You know, healthcare. Thank God for healthcare, right? If it wasn't for healthcare jobs, and the healthcare job market overall, which is the number one job market in the US, like it's the one that's always growing. Chris Russell- Sure.

[00:16:55] Chris Russell- It's the one that always spends the most money on ads. It wasn't for that, like every HR tech vendor and or job board will be hurting right now. They're kind of keeping everything afloat right now from a just a client perspective, right? And if you ask any HR vendor, like, like, most of them, like HR or healthcare clients,

[00:17:13] are their main, you know, paying customers. So that's, that's one. I think the blue collar stuff is still there. I think it's getting harder to for, you know, the big challenge of running any job is getting traffic, right? So you have to attract traffic. And that's getting harder these days. It's harder. It's harder today to find, to get a job to come to your site, post a resume, sign up for a job alert, than it ever has been, just because everyone's so stretched for attention.

[00:17:39] Chris Russell- Getting them to come to convert to your site, whether it's an email address or signing up as a, as a resume and stuff like that is, is very hard these days. So it really takes a lot to convert them. And that's another reason why it's difficult.

[00:17:51] Chris Russell- Well, if you're doing the conversion side, you know, spending a couple minutes talking about the craziness that is the, the application process. When I was first looking for a job, when I had lost my job in December, I spent as much time signing up on as many workday clients, one after another, after another, after another, and just doing the exact same thing.

[00:18:16] Chris Russell- I got so good at it. I thought maybe I should just put up my shingle for workday onboarding or workday applicant tracking, but it was just, it was just awful. I had to do the exact same thing over and over again. And at one point I was like, you know what, this is bullshit. I, I don't know why I keep doing this because it goes into a block hole, but it's workday. And yes, of course it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a more separate instance of workday, right? So it's not just, but you get to that page as a, and if you're not an inch

[00:18:46] HR person, you're not a HR technologist like we both are. And you go to those pages and you're signing up, you're like, what the hell? I've done with some million times. Why do I have to do this yet again? Yeah. To me, that experience was just, it was awful. And it still happens today. There's, to me, there's no excuse for that. Like, it's just like, you know, well, I mean, the excuse is that, you know, the companies are stuck with these systems in place and they can't change.

[00:19:12] So I'd feel for a lot of those TA folks out there who are in that situation where, you know, we've had the software, they know it doesn't work properly. They know that the kind of experience is bad, but their hands are tied. They have no way of, you know, bringing a new system. And that, and that change management is painful. Bringing a new TS is one of the most bad problems you could have from TA perspective, because it's, it's not fun. It takes forever.

[00:19:36] You know, it's like six months to a year, a lot of these big companies and a lot of processes and pain involved with that switch. So I feel for them, but you know, do what you can to, to make that candidate experience faster and more easier. Getting back to the point you've made before of the person finally finds a job that's there, that's in their ballpark. That's in, you know, first of all, it's got the compensation rooms. They know is the right compensation range for them.

[00:20:04] It's got all the experience that they have. They're ready to apply. They'll go to the site, they'll go for an indie or from a zip recruiter or LinkedIn. They go to the website and they, they, they take three steps back because they have to enter all this shit again. That is already in the resume. The, the original parsing still sucks in total, 26.

[00:20:28] So we'll have to correct everything in the resume again. You go through and you're like, I don't, I don't want to put in every single thing I did. It's my resume. You asked for my resume. You got my resume. Why do I do it? So in getting through that process, Chris, and we're so pissed off that this is the 150th time we've done it. And the experience of the recruiter, to your point, they're going to get crap.

[00:20:52] Well, I don't know on the other end, whether or not they actually look at the resume or they just look at the crap that someone puts in on the, you know, on work day or on whatever system it is that parses all this data and puts it into their data structure. But to move that, that just kills the process. And you've gotten all the way to getting that potential, you know, meeting of the minds or we're pushing them your job and their potential.

[00:21:17] And it just drops. It's just, sorry, I don't mean to keep rolling about this. No, no, it's a massive problem. The Holy grail of solving that though, David is every job seeker. And this is where I think things are headed eventually, maybe in like 10 years, maybe hopefully sooner. But every, everyone has their own AI agent that can do that for it. Right. That's, that's where everybody's talking about now in terms of the future. Yeah. Like you're going to have your own AI agent at some point.

[00:21:42] I don't know whether that's, that's not going to be next year or the year after, maybe five, 10 years down the road where you probably have to pay for it too, probably. Yeah, of course. It's not going to be a lot of perks. Yeah. But AI agent will be able to act on your behalf to, you know, you can just, it'll say, Hey, Chris, you want to apply for this job? It just popped up. You just say yes. And it does the rest, right? That's like the Holy grail of job seeker. Yeah.

[00:22:06] But also if you're listening to him, you need to have a job and then you show up for doing a lot and then they did, they won't even hire you because they didn't even know you existed. So. Yeah. Yeah. So. Well, but they weren't, they weren't part of that, which we haven't gotten, we haven't gotten anywhere near. AI and this conversation yet is that, you know, with all of the things going on in the world of work, Dave and, and, and also the, the other potential litigation or the other litigation that's happening. Yeah. Eightfold.

[00:22:36] That there's a lot of regulations that still haven't caught up with where the technology is today. And so all the concerns that I have with this is, where are we with regular regulation in the world of applicant tracking and AI? And is there going to be anything, certainly not on a federal level, but on a state level, that's going to concern you with this? Maybe in Europe, but Europe is probably much more aggressive when it comes to this stuff. So that's number one. But California to an extent as well. Yeah.

[00:23:05] California's put out some regulations or. Yeah. At least they've started to put out some regulations around what can you calculate on someone's behalf or what can you do with the data? Yeah. On a federal level, I, you know, because of the current administration, I don't see any kind of, you know, massive, you know, enforcement of anything right now anyway. So. But the world in that hall to work of protection is anyway. So, you know, it's still a wild west. So it's like, it's the next couple of years, it's going to be status quo as far as all of this goes.

[00:23:36] Well, we'll see. And you thought that AI, it was going to be able to be, I mean, I can't even get it to tell me the weather correctly. So is it, is it actually going to be something? And I've got an NVIDIA DGX Spark supercomputer sitting on my desk. So I'm talking about both sides of my face here. But is AI the answer here for job seekers? I think it can be, right? It just depends on how we do this here. And, you know, the problem with job seekers is that there's no, they have no advocate in this. They have no, you know, dog in the fight for them. Right.

[00:24:06] So we'll be curious to see how this shakes out. It's got to be up to the vendors to create this for them. So we'll have to see, you know, because inventors don't think typically from the candidate standpoint when they create something. They're thinking about the employers who pay for that software. So, but some will come up with this system, you know, well, there, I'm seeing glimpses of it here and there now. But you've got all these lazy applies and all these sort of, there's a new crop of like job search tools that come from the job seeker pays, things like that. Right. So that's a new trend I'm seeing.

[00:24:35] So one of those players is going to come out with this and come out with an agent for you. And that's really going to work one day. But not holding my breath right now. I don't think it's, I think it's a few years away at least. And, you know, and also HR is hard to change too. Like, you know, their, their, their, their behavior. Right. So, and again, because we're stuck with certain systems, like this is going to be a long slog of just introducing AI into the hiring process.

[00:25:01] So this is going to take the next 10 years for AI to really sort of embed itself into everything HR and TA does. That's my opinion. Right. Because I've been in the States for a long time. It just takes time for this stuff to evolve and it's not going to happen overnight for sure. So it's going to be a slow, gradual incline into the world of AI and hiring.

[00:25:22] Well, within the advent of pay transparency, making it easier for someone to, to choose which job is right for them, given their compensation levels and things like that. One would hope that AI would take care of the other pieces of, because the information is available to you is what I'm saying. Or a lot more information is available to you. Going back to original conversation around the job boards.

[00:25:48] Do you think that the job board that influences the world of AI to kind of bring all comers, you know, bring all the candidates? Do you think that's one that might win the day if it becomes more job seeker friendly instead of being more employer friendly? Yeah, I do. I mean, that's, you know, job seeker will gravitate to something like that pretty quickly, you know. So, because like jobs are everywhere now, so it's easy to start a job board, you know, any kind of job search tool.

[00:26:16] You can go and buy job data from any of the numerous number of aggregators out there that collect stuff. And so, if you could take that data and turn it into a really good job search experience, yes, I think that's where Indeed is vulnerable there in that respect. So, we shall see.

[00:26:36] So, if there are any venture capitalists or private equity that are listening to this, call Chris and myself and we're going to help you design that solution. Yes. Call Rock Tech Media right away and get on Chris's calendar. Yeah, it's an interesting world, man. I've been doing this for 25 years and seen all kinds of evolutions here. And this is definitely the next evolution of this process.

[00:27:05] Pretty excited to see what happens next, David, you know. I've got to be honest with you, Chris. From a job seeker perspective, I can't remember a time that's scarier because of… Scary and exciting, yes. Yeah, scary. But if, you know, sort of dramatically is hanging over your head that you're going to lose your job and that, God forbid, you do.

[00:27:26] And you look at the world of employment right now and the world of employment looks the way it does with all that statistic you mentioned before about the number of people applying to a rec on average. I would just be totally scared about losing my job and therefore entrench even deeper. You know, engagement levels go up dramatically when that happens. I'm being facetious.

[00:27:51] But I don't remember a time where people were worried about their roles as right now, especially with the way artificial intelligence is being talked about by these CEOs as being, you know, you get one CEO comes out and says, AI is the next coming. And then you get somebody from like the CEO of NVIDIA going, it's not the next coming. It's we still need good people. Yeah. And I'm in that camp.

[00:28:19] Like, I think that, you know, it's there to help you and assist you and make yourself more productive. And it's going to allow companies to really put the human to other uses. Like, I could see, you know, where you're going to have these like human-facing companies that actually pride themselves on having humans in the AI era whenever we get there, right? So there's going to be companies like that where that human experience is still part of it.

[00:28:45] But I remember the movie Her, where I think he worked at like a greeting card company or something, where they would handwrite like greeting cards and send them out. Like, that's a very human experience, right? It was a human. Yeah. In a very AI-driven world back in the future there. That's where we're headed, I think. I don't know if you remember this, but there used to be this commercial where the owner said, you know, I just spoke to one of my customers by phone.

[00:29:13] And what we need to do is go out and shake each customer's hand one by one. He handed plane tickets to each one of his salespeople that they needed to go out and actually reconnect with their, and this was from, I think the 70s or the 80s. And it must have been the 80s because people have been using the phone much more so. And this was actually before we had telepresence. And it's fascinating that we're in a situation now where it's never going to be about getting on a plane.

[00:29:42] People will talk about, I'm going to get on a plane and come to see you, client. It's about, I'm going to schedule a Zoom meeting or a Teams meeting because, you know, we need to reconnect. Yeah. I think the other thing that AI is going to do is that it's going to create, companies in the future are going to be smaller companies as far as humans go. So, right, you're going to have much more technology, more to assist the workers, meaning you can have less workers. So, you're going to have much smaller teams, I think, in the future.

[00:30:11] That's going to happen, but it's not going to replace them entirely. Scary stuff. Lots of scary stuff. We've seen peak recruiter staffing at this point, I think, and probably HR too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me get into the conversation we were going to have that really kind of boiled me at the beginning, which was Bolt.com's CEO coming out and saying that he fired all of his HR team and created people ops instead. Yeah.

[00:30:41] Good luck with that. Yeah. Nice work for companies, as I told you, that didn't have HR department. They made finance to do all the onboarding paperwork and stuff like that. And that owner of that company just apparently didn't believe in it or didn't care. A lot of times it's those leadership egos who think they can't do without it. Back in the 80s, sorry, back in the 80s, when I worked for an investment bank, they tried to rebrand HR to become the office of development.

[00:31:10] Because the HR leader they brought in said, HR is not working for us. We're going to become the office of development so we can develop all of our people. Didn't change any of our jobs. We were the office of development. And I worked for the London office of development. And so you know what our acronym was? What? Lewd. There used to be a TV show called Human Resources. Did you ever see that? No, I didn't. It was on a plane once. It was on like Delta. Go look at my YouTube. It's kind of funny.

[00:31:40] I liked that. Well, it's important for the AI era. That would be funny. At some point, the HR Data Doodles can become a TV show on the HR channel. And it'll be first round on the HR channel. So go to thehrchannel.tv. But we're going to actually have the HR Data Doodles. And it's going to be comedy around human resources. I mean, there'll be some drama, I imagine, but mostly comedy. Nice. So maybe we can get some applicant tracking stories from you. Yeah, yeah.

[00:32:08] Of course, thank you very much for being on the HR Data Labs podcast. We appreciate you. Yeah, David. Appreciate you having me. And nice luck. All right. Talk to you. Take care. And stay safe. Take care, everyone. Thank you for listening to the HR Data Labs podcast. Don't forget to hit subscribe and share it with your network. You can also check out the recordings on Spotify or the HR channel, now on Roku and Fire TV. Thank you. Take care and stay safe.