How AI is changing targeting and engaging with candidates

[00:00:01] Dieser komplexe Finanzierungstalk ist ganz schön anstrengend. Ob ich mein Depot jemals angelegt kriege?

[00:00:06] Aber du hast doch schon ein Depot.

[00:00:08] Äh, nee.

[00:00:09] Doch, du hast das Vodafone Gigadepot.

[00:00:11] Ha, stimmt. Und da habe ich ja selbst in der Hand, wie groß mein Depot ist.

[00:00:15] Jetzt mit dem Vodafone Gigadepot und verbrauchtes Datenvolumen in den nächsten Monaten mitnehmen.

[00:00:19] Go on im zuverlässigen 5G-Netz von Vodafone. Vodafone. Together we can.

[00:00:24] Welcome to episode 84 of the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast.

[00:00:45] I am Steven Rothberg, one of your two co-hosts.

[00:00:48] My regular co-host, Peter Zulman of the AIM Group, is off today.

[00:00:53] And we have a significant upgrade.

[00:00:54] But I am joined here today by my awesome guest co-host, Julie Soash.

[00:01:01] Julie and her husband, Chad, recently acquired from Jeff Dickey Chasen's The Job Board Doctor Consulting Business.

[00:01:08] But Julie has done a little bit more than that in this space.

[00:01:12] Julie, before we introduce our guest, maybe you can take a little bit of time and tell the listeners about who the heck you are, what you've done.

[00:01:18] Yes, thank you, Steven, for having me.

[00:01:21] Thank you, Peter, for taking the day off.

[00:01:23] I'm thrilled to join for hopefully what is just my first time here on the podcast with you guys.

[00:01:29] So yes, my name is Julie Soash.

[00:01:31] I am not only the newly appointed Job Board Doctor, or we sometimes say the Job Board Doctoress, just for fun around the house.

[00:01:40] But I am also the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Disability Solutions, which is the world's largest end-to-end, basically RKO for finding talent in the disability space.

[00:01:53] We work with over 100 companies.

[00:01:55] And I think that's a big part of our solution, so I'm thrilled to be here to talk to you guys both today and do some learning.

[00:02:02] So thanks for having me.

[00:02:04] Awesome.

[00:02:04] Do you want to introduce our maybe not quite so awesome guest?

[00:02:10] I'm just kidding.

[00:02:13] Of course.

[00:02:14] So Yaz is the Chief Growth Officer at Jogu, the world's most advanced AI recruitment technology firm.

[00:02:22] Welcome to the show.

[00:02:23] Thanks for having me.

[00:02:24] And I agree that I think Julie is an awesome company.

[00:02:29] We're aligned on that.

[00:02:30] I figured we'd have consensus there.

[00:02:34] Julie, do you want to grab the first question?

[00:02:36] Yeah.

[00:02:37] So how do you see companies today leveraging tech, specifically like AI, to achieve some of their recruitment marketing goals,

[00:02:47] especially for those harder-to-fill roles, where we're seeing more and more competition from brands of all sizes, and a lot of changes and shifts constantly in the market dynamics?

[00:02:58] I love this question because if you took the word AI out and just leverage modern technology for achieving recruitment marketing goals, that's the same question that we got when I was at Monster in 1999.

[00:03:12] It's the same question that I got when I was running Radency New York or Radency India or Radency Asia 12 years ago.

[00:03:21] It's the same question that I got when I was at Oracle, helping to run their Oracle HR cloud software business back in 2015 in Asia and in Europe.

[00:03:31] It's the same question every cycle.

[00:03:34] And so the exciting part is now that question is asking about AI.

[00:03:38] Before it was the internet, then it was cloud, now it's AI.

[00:03:41] I think the biggest difference between those first two technology step changes and artificial intelligence is that the expectation of enterprises, clients, heads of HR, heads of talent acquisition, is massively higher.

[00:04:02] Because the expectation of consumers is massively higher.

[00:04:05] I love telling the story about my mother who's in her mid-70s.

[00:04:08] Because she gets so frustrated with her phone, it's her first computer.

[00:04:12] She's never used a computer before her smartphone.

[00:04:15] Whatever she thinks it should be able to do, it should just do.

[00:04:20] It has access to the entire internet.

[00:04:22] It has a camera.

[00:04:23] It's got a microphone.

[00:04:24] It can listen.

[00:04:26] It can write.

[00:04:28] Why can it just not do what she can envision?

[00:04:31] In a way, she's like a product engineer.

[00:04:34] She's got big dreams for her tech.

[00:04:36] So I think that same thing is true for clients.

[00:04:38] And what we're seeing a lot of organizations sort of battle with is how do you reconcile all this super capability that AI brings around being able to work nonstop 24 hours a day, being able to think at massive pace and massive scale.

[00:04:58] And rationalize that against, well, I've got 50 recruiters on my team.

[00:05:02] So shouldn't I really leverage all those FTEs that I'm budgeted for?

[00:05:06] Also the fear factor.

[00:05:07] How much of the automation that I bring in from AI will replace what my humans are currently doing?

[00:05:14] Will it make me look bad?

[00:05:16] And I always say the right way to think about it is let's reskill those folks to do the harder, more thoughtful, creative work that we don't think automation can do yet so that the automation picks up the mundane, boring stuff for them.

[00:05:27] But I think it's really hard to rationalize those things.

[00:05:30] What we're trying to deliver at Jovio is let's apply all of the cutting edge tech that you know exists.

[00:05:36] That's your expectation for you.

[00:05:38] We're a fully managed service company.

[00:05:41] I'm at Unleash right now.

[00:05:42] But one of the common themes here at Unleash was where's the AI in this vendor, that vendor?

[00:05:49] How do I apply it?

[00:05:51] And what we're trying to do, we're a tech company at heart.

[00:05:53] We have 155 engineers.

[00:05:55] What we're trying to say to our clients is we're not going to sell you software.

[00:06:00] We're going to do the work for you.

[00:06:03] But the we in this case is a few of our folks, but all of our machines.

[00:06:08] Which is very different from going to an RPO or an agency and saying, here's 15 full-time agency employees.

[00:06:15] I'm going to put on your account so we can do this work for you.

[00:06:18] That's not what our clients expect.

[00:06:21] That's what they expect is to use the cutting edge tech that they aren't necessarily equipped to use on their own.

[00:06:26] We do it for them.

[00:06:28] And I think that's how we're trying to meet their expectation.

[00:06:31] Interesting.

[00:06:32] So for folks who don't know, and I suspect that virtually everybody who's watching this knows, Jovio is one of the leading programmatic vendors.

[00:06:40] And so competitors would be the app casts of the world.

[00:06:47] What was Panda Logic, Veritone higher now.

[00:06:50] So it's interesting because some of the, to me, some of the other vendors are very much software solutions.

[00:06:58] And some of the other vendors in that space are very heavy on the people and very light, actually, on the technology.

[00:07:05] When you kind of like go behind the surface, what you're saying, I think, Yaz, is that Jovio very much blends the two of them.

[00:07:12] My word's not yours, but it kind of sounds like from a client perspective, it would be hard for them to differentiate where the people stop and the tech begin.

[00:07:20] The tech is really there to work hand in hand.

[00:07:24] Can employers employ that same strategy when it comes to attracting and engaging talent, where some of that's going to be people, recruiters?

[00:07:34] Some of that's going to be technology, whether it's Jovio or other systems.

[00:07:38] Is that something you see employers doing?

[00:07:40] Should they be doing more of that?

[00:07:42] Before we move on, I need to let you know about my friend Mark Pfeffer and his show, People Tech.

[00:07:48] If you're looking for the latest on product development, marketing, funding, big deals happening in talent acquisition, HR, HCM, that's the show you need to listen to.

[00:08:00] Go to the Work Defined Network, search up People Tech, Mark Pfeffer.

[00:08:05] You can find them anywhere.

[00:08:08] I want to answer that.

[00:08:10] Let me take a step back and give a really strained analogy.

[00:08:14] You know those companies that if you really want your carpets power washed and they'll bring their truck has like their huge industrial strength vacuum cleaner inside and they've got some proprietary tech and they've bought some equipment and they've designed it.

[00:08:30] None of the, what's the really famous one?

[00:08:32] I forget the name.

[00:08:33] Stanley Steamer.

[00:08:34] Yeah.

[00:08:35] And right now I'm thinking of somebody who looks remarkably like me once spilling a glass of cranberry juice, but that's another topic for another day.

[00:08:43] Thanks for identifying the use case.

[00:08:45] So Stanley Steamer is old, you know, heritage company.

[00:08:49] What technology did they use in their truck?

[00:08:52] It didn't matter.

[00:08:53] What you were buying was the outcome.

[00:08:56] Right.

[00:08:56] Programmatic for us is a tool.

[00:08:58] We don't sell programmatic advertising.

[00:09:00] We don't sell our platform.

[00:09:02] What we're doing is delivering performance for our clients amongst the multiple tools and protocols that we use.

[00:09:09] Programmatic is a key one.

[00:09:11] It's a key lever for us.

[00:09:12] So is our GPT powered CRM layer.

[00:09:15] So is our ability to launch personalized micro sites within five business days on brand.

[00:09:19] But each of these offerings, while our clients certainly can purchase them, for the majority of our large, high volume hiring, massive scale customers, what they're investing in with us is the outcome.

[00:09:36] How many thousands of applications can you provide me that are of quality, targeted by location, by level, by profile in a fixed amount of time at a cost that's lower than what I spent last year?

[00:09:48] That's all they want.

[00:09:49] Now, I can go into detail and say, oh, we use AutoML and we're going to constantly train our prediction engine.

[00:09:54] We're going to use, you know, O-Net for this and BERT from Google for that.

[00:09:58] We have all of these AI models that are powering our platform.

[00:10:01] But ultimately, our clients, as hopefully should glaze over because what they want to know is how many applications at what cost in what amount of time and will you let me measure you on quality?

[00:10:14] So for our clients, they pay us cost per application.

[00:10:17] They measure us on cost per short list.

[00:10:21] If they're more sophisticated, cost per hire.

[00:10:23] If they're more progressive, cost per first swipe or first day start.

[00:10:29] We have a client that is one of the world's largest ride hailing companies.

[00:10:34] Okay, but they are one of the most ruthless in a good way, exploiters of technology in the world.

[00:10:40] They are my toughest client.

[00:10:42] They want to know cost per first trip, first ride.

[00:10:47] You know, how many shifts did that person drive in their first week?

[00:10:50] Because that's a predictor of the long term value of that driver.

[00:10:54] So we are focused on delivering those kinds of outcomes for our clients.

[00:10:57] We happen to use multiple AI models to optimize job titles, location, job category, all of that stuff, duration of job.

[00:11:06] We happen to use AI for bid management so that we pay the right price on the right job board at the right time.

[00:11:11] And we optimize that every four hours.

[00:11:13] But none of our clients are buying those services.

[00:11:15] Just like you and I don't know what kind of petrol Stanley Steamer uses to fuel their truck and, you know, what thickness of pipe they use for the suction.

[00:11:25] It doesn't matter.

[00:11:26] Clean my house.

[00:11:27] That red wine that Steven Rothberg's doppelganger spilled 30 years ago.

[00:11:31] No cranberry juice.

[00:11:33] Cranberry juice.

[00:11:34] It was definitely wine.

[00:11:36] Julie, I think we have time for one more question.

[00:11:38] Do you want to grab it?

[00:11:38] That was a great explanation because I just want to say we, I was at an event a few weeks ago and I was surprised how few of the very large employers that were in the room were familiar with programmatic advertising and kind of comfortable with talking about it.

[00:11:55] So I think when you're talking about your approach, that really makes a lot of sense is you don't need to know how all the bells and whistles work.

[00:12:00] You just need to know that it works.

[00:12:03] Are there some other common trends that you're kind of seeing across your large clients in how they're really attracting and engaging talent?

[00:12:12] And maybe to one more step in finding them at the right moment, but also leading them into all of those times they need to see that brand before that right moment occurs.

[00:12:36] We're going to see that brand new customers.

[00:12:54] Maybe this will surprise you because it may not be the type of answer you're expecting.

[00:12:59] I think their tolerance level is waning really fast.

[00:13:05] And what I mean by that is there have been so many things that in the talent acquisition

[00:13:10] space for so many years, we have accepted ruefully, we have tolerated because it's how it's always

[00:13:19] been. And that tolerance level is dropping partly because sophisticated heads of TA know that just

[00:13:29] because we've always paid for job slots on this particular publisher, we've always had to have

[00:13:36] this branding page on this other publisher. If we can prove that that's not driving performance,

[00:13:42] then let's cut it out or reevaluate our approach. Their tolerance for performance of vendors,

[00:13:50] but also performance of recruiters is waning. That if you have all of this tech and automation

[00:13:55] available to you, how can you still as a recruiter continue to operate the way you did five or even

[00:14:00] two or one year ago? How are you leveraging automation for yourself? How are you leveraging

[00:14:05] the tools that we've purchased for you? So I think that tolerance is waning. I think also what we see

[00:14:10] in here from procurement groups for every RFP that we respond to, they want to be able to track

[00:14:16] through the cost efficiency. So it's not just let's spend less this year than last year.

[00:14:22] So where are we wasting dollar job postings up way beyond the moment after which we got the

[00:14:28] requisite number of applications? In a dashboard, we refer to that window lit as wastage. So we provide

[00:14:34] a wastage metric for our clients. Cost and efficiency. How many vendors or brokers or middlemen

[00:14:40] you mentioned a bunch of job distribution companies earlier are marking up without our knowledge?

[00:14:46] Procurement wants to know. CFO wants to know. So in our dashboard, we show the true spend for each of

[00:14:52] our clients by position, by job group, by publisher, by job, all the way down. Of course, we're a for-profit

[00:15:00] company. We show where we make money. We show how we've spent theirs. That's really important.

[00:15:05] So I think that tolerance is dropping. Impatience is rising. They want to know more. They want to see

[00:15:11] the truth. They want transparency and they want efficiency. Oh, that's awesome. It definitely seems

[00:15:17] like we are in the midst of moving from a sort of touchy feely industry. It feels good to a data

[00:15:28] driven industry. And I don't mean data to justify decisions that you've already made. I see some of that.

[00:15:34] Good enough is not good enough anymore. I think that's a mantra that we hear over and over again.

[00:15:39] I heard that last night. We were with one of France's, well, I should say Europe's,

[00:15:42] one of their largest energy companies. And he said this over and over again, that I have a team

[00:15:48] that looks and is structured exactly the same way as it was 10 years ago. That's not good enough.

[00:15:55] Speaking of good enough, and now I'm just going to throw some kind of a dad type of joke in there.

[00:16:00] This is going to have to be good enough because we are out of time. Julie, thank you very much for

[00:16:06] the first of what I hope will be many guest co-host appearances. Any guest co-host is a significant

[00:16:14] upgrade on Peter. And I can say that because Peter can't respond. But in all seriousness,

[00:16:18] awesome to see you. Yaz, enjoy Paris. I know it's one of your favorite cities, Julie's. I've seen her

[00:16:27] write about her adoration for Paris and me as well. Definitely one of the world's jewels. Thank you very

[00:16:33] much for sharing some of your wisdom. My pleasure. Thank you, Julie. And thank you, Stephen. Thank you.

[00:16:37] Cheers.