End of Resumes - The Work Wire

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[00:00:31] Hello everybody.

[00:00:32] This is Bob Goodwin.

[00:00:33] Welcome to another episode of The Work Wire where I'm joined by my co-host, the inimitable

[00:00:40] president and CEO of SHRM, Johnny C. Taylor Jr.

[00:00:43] Johnny great to see you.

[00:00:44] Great to see you.

[00:00:45] I love that word.

[00:00:46] I don't know how to spell it.

[00:00:47] I'm not even sure.

[00:00:48] I barely got it.

[00:00:49] I don't know what it means but thank you because I'm assuming good intent.

[00:00:53] Always good intent.

[00:00:55] Always good intent.

[00:00:57] So I'm excited about today's topic.

[00:00:59] Johnny, it's a little, you know, trying to be pushed the envelope here a little bit

[00:01:02] but we're going to talk about the end of resumes.

[00:01:04] Oh, okay.

[00:01:05] Well, how can you do the end of a resume?

[00:01:11] But as you know at Career.Club, we work a lot with either people that have been

[00:01:17] displaced in their role.

[00:01:20] We also work with candidates who won't be moving forward in a talent acquisition

[00:01:26] process.

[00:01:27] But so they are active job seekers and they're seeing these roles.

[00:01:31] They think they're super qualified for and they're not moving forward in the

[00:01:36] process and they're like, what the heck?

[00:01:39] And oftentimes they will get pretty far down the line interviewing with

[00:01:45] someone and you'll be the number two candidate, the silver medalist, if

[00:01:49] you will, and you know, ask for a little bit of feedback.

[00:01:53] You know, was there anything that you would have liked to see that would

[00:01:57] have made me the preferred candidate?

[00:01:59] And so often it comes down to, well, the person that we went with just had a

[00:02:04] little bit more industry experience and that just like sends me through the

[00:02:08] roof.

[00:02:09] Like really?

[00:02:11] Now, I mean, to me, just to kind of set this up a little bit more is

[00:02:18] broad strokes.

[00:02:20] It's education.

[00:02:21] Yes.

[00:02:22] What is your, do you have a college degree typically?

[00:02:26] Is your degree relevant to the functional area or the role that we're

[00:02:30] hiring for and where did you go to school?

[00:02:33] Because wherever you went to school matters in theory.

[00:02:37] And then experience.

[00:02:39] And again, I'm not trying to diminish.

[00:02:43] Do you have the proficiency to do the work that is required in a given role?

[00:02:49] But at the same time, there's this really strong bias.

[00:02:53] In fact, generally it's the first filter of do you have industry

[00:02:58] experience and that definition of industry can be incredibly narrow.

[00:03:03] Yes.

[00:03:05] So I believe that there is kind of this, you know,

[00:03:13] forced constraint in talent acquisition, but also on the side of the

[00:03:19] candidates that we work with, that there's so many opportunities that they

[00:03:23] would be qualified for if how we were defining qualified was broader.

[00:03:29] And so I think the way that the industry would talk about that is

[00:03:33] skills-based hiring.

[00:03:35] Yes.

[00:03:37] Yeah.

[00:03:39] And I think that's really what that means.

[00:03:41] So from your side, Johnny, as you're working with HR professionals and we

[00:03:45] know that there's always this air quote war for talent.

[00:03:49] And yet what we're defining as talent I think is a little flawed based on

[00:03:55] your degree and your work experience.

[00:03:59] How do you just sort of generally see the issue?

[00:04:03] Man, it is this is the issue that has proved quite vexing, right,

[00:04:08] HR professionals and, and frankly line managers, all of us.

[00:04:12] And I start with very briefly.

[00:04:16] We know it's suboptimal the way that we do it now.

[00:04:20] We know that we're missing incredibly talented people, but here are three

[00:04:26] reasons why hear me right?

[00:04:28] I'm not arguing it for those who are out there listening said, okay,

[00:04:32] here he goes.

[00:04:34] It's one, some of it is purely efficiency.

[00:04:40] If you get you posted a job and you get a thousand applicants, okay?

[00:04:48] Having to go through all 1000 of those resumes is time consuming.

[00:04:54] It's not particularly efficient and it's exhausting.

[00:04:58] But let's just admit it.

[00:05:00] If you've ever been in that position, you got these resumes.

[00:05:02] So you immediately look for things that will help take the thousand

[00:05:06] down to a hundred or 50 or 20.

[00:05:10] And that means you rule out the people without a degree.

[00:05:12] You rule out the people who don't have X number of years of

[00:05:16] experiences in the industry or doing the job, even if in a

[00:05:20] different industry like you are what you're doing.

[00:05:22] And again, this please don't hear me.

[00:05:24] This is not in defense of TA, talent acquisition professionals,

[00:05:28] but it is it's just practically speaking, which my response to

[00:05:31] that is thank God for AI and other technologies now because

[00:05:35] they can actually help us solve for some of that human beings.

[00:05:39] If you have 20 open positions and you got a thousand resumes

[00:05:43] and applicants every morning, you know, apply for those

[00:05:45] jobs, it's tough.

[00:05:47] So that's one.

[00:05:49] So that's really why we've done it is to help make this

[00:05:51] the unmanageable manageable.

[00:05:53] Secondly, from a risk profile, no one ever, ever gets fired

[00:05:59] for hiring the guy with a Harvard degree and 20 years in

[00:06:03] industry experience who doesn't work out.

[00:06:05] But if you as a talent acquisition person put your neck

[00:06:09] on the line and you've got to make the case to the hiring

[00:06:13] manager that this is a strong candidate based upon his or

[00:06:15] her skills, although the profile doesn't read as nicely

[00:06:19] as the other one, you're taking a risk.

[00:06:21] We are judged as human resources professionals,

[00:06:23] oftentimes not only in how quickly you fill the job, but

[00:06:27] how successful the candidate is in the job.

[00:06:29] There is a part of it which says I don't want my numbers to

[00:06:35] reflect that if I were in baseball, I took a swing at

[00:06:39] some bad, what do you call those things?

[00:06:43] You can tell I'm not an athlete, right?

[00:06:45] But right, I mean, that's just the fact of the matter.

[00:06:47] And then thirdly, which is sort of related to all of it

[00:06:51] is ultimately human resources professionals.

[00:06:56] Human resources professionals are number one challenges to

[00:07:00] get the best talent, however so defined, into our

[00:07:04] organization.

[00:07:06] And you do increase the odds of having the best talent

[00:07:10] if that talent has been tried.

[00:07:12] What's that old saying?

[00:07:14] Past performance is the best indicator of future

[00:07:16] performance?

[00:07:18] Well, if I'm in a tech job, if I'm at a tech

[00:07:20] company and I'm looking for someone to be a programmer,

[00:07:22] that person came from Google, Apple, Microsoft.

[00:07:24] There's just a better chance that they're going to be

[00:07:28] successful.

[00:07:30] Putting aside the cultural differences between a Google

[00:07:32] and a Sharm, but the fact of the matter is when the

[00:07:34] resume says you got the top developer from Apple, it

[00:07:38] happens to be that he went to Stanford, check.

[00:07:40] Happens to be that he's in the right major tech.

[00:07:42] Like I got it.

[00:07:44] So all of those three, I want to set up.

[00:07:46] That's the reality of what the talent has to offer.

[00:07:52] It's not a talent acquisition on the HR professional

[00:07:54] basis.

[00:07:56] So thank you for framing that out.

[00:07:58] This is, as you say, not an attack on talent

[00:08:02] acquisition, nor is it a defense of talent

[00:08:04] acquisition.

[00:08:06] What I'm trying to move to is that the work

[00:08:09] force is changing rapidly.

[00:08:11] Work is changing rapidly.

[00:08:13] Yes.

[00:08:15] And I saw the testimony that you gave to the

[00:08:17] Armed Services Committee and you're helping them

[00:08:19] and you're helping them understand how, you know,

[00:08:23] how we got here and where we're going

[00:08:25] may not be the same thing.

[00:08:27] Right? Right.

[00:08:28] And so, you know, kind of to your point on the efficiency

[00:08:31] and the risk management and just, you know,

[00:08:34] what's the best predictor that we know of,

[00:08:36] of, you know, performance.

[00:08:38] Yes.

[00:08:39] So I'm tracking with you on all those things.

[00:08:44] I think that, you know, on the risk thing,

[00:08:48] I want to talk about that for a second.

[00:08:50] So we both know Joe Fuller from Harvard Business School, right?

[00:08:53] And he leads the Future of Work Project at Harvard.

[00:08:57] And I was speaking with him and we were talking about

[00:09:01] the, as appropriate in the roles

[00:09:05] that actually don't require a four-year college degree

[00:09:09] that companies have implemented a policy.

[00:09:12] And I always pick on this one

[00:09:13] because it's just top of mind for me,

[00:09:14] but cybersecurity.

[00:09:16] Do I need to know the Canterbury Tales

[00:09:19] to be a really good, you know,

[00:09:22] entry level cybersecurity analyst?

[00:09:25] Probably not.

[00:09:27] So, and then companies will say,

[00:09:29] hey, so for roles like that,

[00:09:31] we have dropped the college degree requirement.

[00:09:34] But what he sees in their data

[00:09:39] is that they still keep hiring

[00:09:41] only people with a college degree.

[00:09:44] Joe, why is that?

[00:09:46] Because back to what you said, it's risk.

[00:09:49] They perceive personal risk of,

[00:09:52] why did you hire Bob when you could have had Johnny?

[00:09:55] Johnny's got the four-year degree, Bob doesn't.

[00:09:58] And so it's on you that you took a risk,

[00:10:03] even though I know what the policy says,

[00:10:06] but I also know reality.

[00:10:07] And so there's definitely that perception

[00:10:10] that we can even change the policy

[00:10:12] and still not move in that direction.

[00:10:15] Well, and let me double click on that,

[00:10:17] as you know, as a former labor and employment lawyer,

[00:10:20] I can tell you it's not just perception.

[00:10:23] Frankly, the laws make us look at it that way.

[00:10:27] Because if you make the decision,

[00:10:29] and I'm gonna use,

[00:10:30] you've got a guy who applies for a job,

[00:10:34] phenomenal experience and can do this job.

[00:10:37] He was great at coding

[00:10:39] and has done it since he was 12.

[00:10:41] You have a woman apply for that same job

[00:10:44] and she has a degree from Stanford

[00:10:46] and a master's in MIT.

[00:10:48] If you give that job to that man,

[00:10:51] you are subjecting your company

[00:10:53] to EEOC claims and potentially litigation.

[00:10:58] So it's more than just,

[00:11:00] and I have to say, I've seen this over and over again.

[00:11:04] It's not an explanation,

[00:11:05] I'm not justifying or rationalizing anything folks.

[00:11:07] I'm trying to let you know

[00:11:09] that as a labor and employment lawyer

[00:11:11] and got that our plaintiff's lawyer,

[00:11:13] I take that case up every day

[00:11:16] that you hired the guy without the college degree

[00:11:20] over the woman whose credentials

[00:11:22] clearly made her better qualified.

[00:11:26] So we have to also understand

[00:11:28] that as HR professionals,

[00:11:29] we are one of the most regulated,

[00:11:31] unregulated professions on the planet

[00:11:34] because we're subject to litigation

[00:11:36] and employment litigation is big, it's expensive,

[00:11:39] tarnishes the company's reputation even if you win.

[00:11:42] Again, no excuse,

[00:11:43] but you gotta understand the context in which we work.

[00:11:48] No judge is going to just give you a pass

[00:11:51] because you say, yeah,

[00:11:52] but he was building code and writing code

[00:11:56] since he was 10,

[00:11:58] but look at her background.

[00:12:01] That could be race, it could be any,

[00:12:02] on any basis, we are also living in an environment

[00:12:06] where we have to be really careful

[00:12:07] because someone is second guessing your decision

[00:12:11] to not pursue, not offer her a job,

[00:12:14] but to offer it to this guy based purely on skills.

[00:12:17] Okay, fair point.

[00:12:18] So-

[00:12:19] How, I don't know if I like that fair point

[00:12:21] and sometimes-

[00:12:22] No, no, no, because-

[00:12:23] Because what I noted to me

[00:12:25] and sometimes I'm like, I mean, she didn't like that.

[00:12:27] But let me-

[00:12:28] Well, what I'm saying is,

[00:12:30] is that I'm trying to address

[00:12:33] that there is a very broad pool of talent

[00:12:37] who's being excluded from roles

[00:12:40] that they could be successful in

[00:12:42] due to legacy requirements-

[00:12:46] And laws.

[00:12:48] And laws, yes.

[00:12:50] So as we think about,

[00:12:53] so if the kind of the legacy equation

[00:12:57] is education plus experience equals qualified?

[00:13:01] Bad, bad math.

[00:13:04] I want to explore something with you, Johnny,

[00:13:06] that kind of says, no, wait a minute.

[00:13:08] First of all, while your experience is good,

[00:13:11] there's actually a couple of maybe things

[00:13:13] you haven't thought about.

[00:13:15] One is the lack of diversity of thought.

[00:13:19] So if all we have is people

[00:13:20] who've worked in the auto industry,

[00:13:22] working in our auto company

[00:13:23] versus bringing in somebody who worked at Amazon

[00:13:27] or Microsoft or just Apple,

[00:13:30] like just saying tech companies for some reason,

[00:13:32] but somebody that brings like this completely different,

[00:13:36] fresh viewpoint into the company instead of,

[00:13:40] but we've always hired people

[00:13:41] who have come from the auto industry.

[00:13:44] Well, I want to question that.

[00:13:46] On that level alone,

[00:13:48] that just bringing the diversity of experience,

[00:13:52] the diversity of thought,

[00:13:53] somebody that can say,

[00:13:54] we've had analogous issues at Amazon

[00:13:57] that you guys are facing at Ford.

[00:13:59] Here's a different way of potentially thinking

[00:14:02] about the problem and how to solve it.

[00:14:04] That benefits the company tremendously.

[00:14:07] And yet I see every day that the number one criteria

[00:14:12] that employers are looking at is,

[00:14:14] do you have relevant industry experience?

[00:14:16] And part of it's very understandable

[00:14:18] because back to your second point on risk,

[00:14:21] it's like, well,

[00:14:22] but if I got to teach you the auto industry,

[00:14:25] that equals time.

[00:14:26] And now that kind of branches off into two risk factors

[00:14:29] of are you ever going to get it?

[00:14:32] And if you do,

[00:14:33] how long is it going to take you to get it?

[00:14:35] And then that means I'm paying you

[00:14:37] and not getting an ROI potentially on my higher view.

[00:14:41] So it's not illogical

[00:14:44] that people are looking at industry.

[00:14:45] I'm just suggesting that there's this over emphasis

[00:14:50] on industry to the exclusion of considering people

[00:14:54] who don't come from the industry.

[00:14:56] So we are violently agreeing.

[00:14:58] No surprise, Bob.

[00:15:00] I don't, so I was identifying the other argument

[00:15:05] and that's what I found sometimes

[00:15:06] to really address an issue.

[00:15:09] I've got to understand what the other side

[00:15:12] of the argument is.

[00:15:14] I though agree with you.

[00:15:15] In an environment right now in the US,

[00:15:18] we have 8.8, almost 8.9 million open jobs.

[00:15:22] Frankly, we don't have the luxury

[00:15:24] of saying some people just because you don't fit

[00:15:28] this perfect idea of the candidates

[00:15:32] you come from our industry

[00:15:33] with this number of years experience at this school

[00:15:35] with this GPA and this major.

[00:15:37] We just don't have it.

[00:15:38] That's why there's people looking for jobs,

[00:15:41] but employers looking for jobs to be filled

[00:15:44] and none of the just like that's insane.

[00:15:47] So I literally agree with everything that you're saying.

[00:15:51] And so let's get to solutions.

[00:15:54] So got it.

[00:15:55] There is actually a way to get around

[00:15:58] and I don't mean in a negative way,

[00:16:00] but to resolve to solve for the legal issue.

[00:16:03] If the company says that from the top down,

[00:16:07] CHRO down, we're going to be an organization

[00:16:10] that A doesn't require the degree,

[00:16:13] doesn't rule people out

[00:16:14] because they have criminal background or credit problems,

[00:16:17] doesn't require industry experience.

[00:16:21] That's a start because it establishes the tone

[00:16:25] and gives a framework where if you go to the EEOC later,

[00:16:30] I was just with the former vice chair of the EEOC yesterday,

[00:16:33] Keith Sunderling, who's still on it.

[00:16:35] He's a commissioner.

[00:16:36] And I was saying, he was like, listen,

[00:16:38] our issue is we don't want to tell you

[00:16:40] what the rules should be at your company.

[00:16:42] We're saying that if they're your rules,

[00:16:44] you got to follow them.

[00:16:45] So maybe we redefine and you can do this friends,

[00:16:50] redefine what is qualified.

[00:16:55] Qualified doesn't have to be experience

[00:16:57] in the auto industry.

[00:16:58] You can just say experience marketing.

[00:17:00] Yes. Anything, right?

[00:17:03] We can do that where we have boxed ourselves in

[00:17:06] is by requiring this much experience

[00:17:10] in the industry for every candidate

[00:17:12] until we actually want the candidate

[00:17:14] or because it's a friend of a friend.

[00:17:16] Then the EEOC and others come in and say

[00:17:18] that doesn't work.

[00:17:19] So start with reframing,

[00:17:21] and we're going to be a skills-based employer.

[00:17:25] We're gonna make our hiring decisions,

[00:17:26] our promotion decisions,

[00:17:28] our pay decisions based upon skills and performance.

[00:17:32] That alone will, while not eliminate,

[00:17:36] it will significantly mitigate any risk and profile.

[00:17:40] And it also internally,

[00:17:42] then when your hiring manager starts seeing,

[00:17:45] oh, Johnny over in finance just hired someone

[00:17:48] who doesn't have a finance degree in accounting,

[00:17:51] that person's amazing.

[00:17:53] Maybe the organization actually believes us now

[00:17:55] or Johnny's in a retailer

[00:17:57] and he just hired someone from manufacturing

[00:18:00] and but people have to see it, Bob.

[00:18:03] It's not enough for me and you and the CHRO

[00:18:06] and others to pontificate about it.

[00:18:08] We've got to start saying, this is a skills-based.

[00:18:12] Show me what you know, even in the phrase,

[00:18:14] I heard people say education plus experience.

[00:18:17] Well, experience is education.

[00:18:19] I mean, right?

[00:18:20] You can learn the job or you can go off to some four year,

[00:18:22] seven year, whatever school.

[00:18:24] There are ways to learn just language,

[00:18:27] how we talk about it.

[00:18:28] We want the person who can do the job,

[00:18:31] not who sends signals of I went to the right schools

[00:18:35] or what I've worked in the right industries.

[00:18:37] And I think we're getting there.

[00:18:39] As frustrating as it may sound,

[00:18:41] and I'm sure you see people on the other side of it,

[00:18:43] it is changing the mood.

[00:18:45] I'm seeing people now CEOs of industries where like,

[00:18:50] where'd that person come from?

[00:18:52] How did they get this job?

[00:18:53] Because that's not the way we used to select CEOs.

[00:18:56] If you're gonna be in an automotive,

[00:18:58] you had to show yourself to be a former

[00:19:00] automotive industry CEO.

[00:19:02] So it did, by the way, as you know,

[00:19:05] middle management is plagued by this

[00:19:07] and senior executive selection also.

[00:19:11] So that's very interesting.

[00:19:12] So if I'm hearing you right with the EEOC thing

[00:19:16] is that we can reframe our risk profile.

[00:19:20] That's right.

[00:19:21] Well said, perfectly said.

[00:19:23] That's right.

[00:19:25] So I wanna pick up on kind of,

[00:19:29] if I'm sort of downplaying the legacy formula

[00:19:34] and I appreciate what you're saying

[00:19:36] that experiences education.

[00:19:37] Although I think that that gets

[00:19:40] under appreciated sometimes.

[00:19:42] And so I appreciate things like opportunities to work

[00:19:44] and other people that are like, that is education.

[00:19:47] They've been doing this for 10 years

[00:19:49] without a piece of paper on their wall.

[00:19:51] That's right.

[00:19:52] I agree with that.

[00:19:53] What I wanna suggest

[00:19:55] and at least kind of talk out with you for a minute

[00:19:57] is a different formula

[00:19:58] that I think is more reflective

[00:20:01] of the workplace going forward,

[00:20:05] which is around learning agility.

[00:20:10] So the other reason I think that industry experience

[00:20:13] will be less important is

[00:20:15] industries are being redefined very quickly

[00:20:18] because of technology.

[00:20:20] That's right.

[00:20:21] And business models are changing.

[00:20:23] So that's great that you knew that version of tech

[00:20:27] like you worked at AOL,

[00:20:28] but guess what?

[00:20:29] That's like it's changed.

[00:20:30] Like we're not in a prodigy AOL world anymore

[00:20:35] or Blackberries or like pick anything, right?

[00:20:38] So learning agility,

[00:20:40] because the pace of change,

[00:20:42] I like to say this to people is

[00:20:44] is that today is the slowest day

[00:20:46] for the rest of your life.

[00:20:48] Right to say that.

[00:20:48] It's so true too.

[00:20:49] And it's true.

[00:20:51] I mean, just everything is changing so quickly

[00:20:54] that the shelf life of a given skill

[00:20:59] or a given experience set is actually shrinking.

[00:21:03] And so we need to continually be learning.

[00:21:05] So I need to, from a skills-based perspective

[00:21:08] to be able to hire agile learners.

[00:21:11] That is a huge superpower moving forward.

[00:21:14] The second one would be around contribution motivation.

[00:21:18] People that want to make a difference.

[00:21:20] My ability to see that I'm having an impact

[00:21:24] is important to me, right?

[00:21:28] So I could have a great degree.

[00:21:30] I could have kind of done,

[00:21:33] ridden the bench for 10 years.

[00:21:36] I could have done a lot of work

[00:21:37] at some company, but you know,

[00:21:40] I'm just sort of getting along

[00:21:42] and I'm just sort of living in the middle

[00:21:43] and nobody's found me out yet.

[00:21:45] But my desire, my motivation to contribute,

[00:21:49] you know, might be somewhat muted

[00:21:53] versus somebody who's like,

[00:21:54] I am so behind the mission of the organization.

[00:21:57] I'm so behind the needs of the people that we serve.

[00:21:59] I'm so behind the solutions that we're developing

[00:22:02] and bringing to the market.

[00:22:04] And I think that's a really important one.

[00:22:05] And I think that's a really important one.

[00:22:07] And I think that's a really important one.

[00:22:09] And my other thing is that,

[00:22:12] I think the third one that I'm going to talk about

[00:22:13] is what's called emotional intelligence.

[00:22:16] I'm going to say this in the beginning

[00:22:17] because I believe in our leadership.

[00:22:19] Whatever it is that you can hang your hat on,

[00:22:22] contribution motivation is huge.

[00:22:24] And the third one, and I saved this for the last

[00:22:28] because I think it's misunderstood,

[00:22:31] is emotional intelligence.

[00:22:33] We're on civil conversations,

[00:22:35] but the emotional intelligence,

[00:22:38] being a high quality team member,

[00:22:40] somebody that makes the team stronger

[00:22:43] who can foster healthy relationships

[00:22:46] is not to be underestimated.

[00:22:49] So learning agility plus contribution motivation

[00:22:53] plus emotional intelligence,

[00:22:55] those would be at least three of the kind of skill

[00:22:59] buckets that I would hope that we could start

[00:23:04] to identify better and rank candidates against.

[00:23:06] No, I think that's right.

[00:23:07] And yeah, I mean, we're in the middle of

[00:23:11] a really interesting transformation in the workplace.

[00:23:15] And it all started frankly, thanks to COVID.

[00:23:19] I say oftentimes COVID wasn't all bad.

[00:23:22] Many ways it forced us to rethink

[00:23:25] the entire way that our relationship with work, et cetera.

[00:23:28] You know that, right?

[00:23:30] The idea of the 20% of the workforce who work remotely

[00:23:36] would have never occurred.

[00:23:38] We were in single digit numbers pre pandemic

[00:23:40] and although it swung back to some combination of hybrid

[00:23:43] and it's real, right?

[00:23:45] What I would say is what you are talking about

[00:23:48] is you're a frontiersman.

[00:23:51] This is where the world is going.

[00:23:54] I know it's frustrating for people like you

[00:23:56] and professionals who work in this space every day

[00:23:59] and you see really talented people being overlooked.

[00:24:03] And you're like, what gives?

[00:24:05] You're saying you need talent.

[00:24:06] I've got the talent who can do this job in spades

[00:24:09] but you're not hiring me.

[00:24:11] I see the frustration.

[00:24:13] Let me give you some confidence.

[00:24:14] These conversations are happening everywhere.

[00:24:17] Skills-based is not just a feel good term.

[00:24:21] You know, it's not, you know,

[00:24:23] but it's change is slow in this regard

[00:24:25] because we, you know,

[00:24:26] it's like a couple of analogous situations.

[00:24:29] When you ask overwhelmingly people,

[00:24:33] do you think we need to give people

[00:24:34] second chances in hiring?

[00:24:37] People formerly incarcerated,

[00:24:38] do you give them a chance to get a job?

[00:24:40] The answer is yes.

[00:24:41] But in practice, they don't hire them

[00:24:44] at the rates that they say they would hire.

[00:24:46] College degree or not, same thing.

[00:24:49] Absolutely.

[00:24:50] And you talked about Fuller's work and others.

[00:24:52] So this is a part of the C shift

[00:24:55] that we're seeing right now in the workplace

[00:24:59] but progress is being made.

[00:25:01] What you're talking about,

[00:25:02] and I'm so glad we're talking about the end of resumes

[00:25:05] in the traditional sense

[00:25:07] is you're tapping into exactly where the industry is going,

[00:25:11] where the HR profession is going.

[00:25:13] But let me leave you with this, which is fascinating.

[00:25:16] This will, you can't just preach to the HR people

[00:25:19] because if I'm a talent acquisition person

[00:25:22] and I see a really talented person

[00:25:25] that I want to put before one of our hiring managers

[00:25:27] but that hiring manager has a bias,

[00:25:31] that sometimes is your biggest,

[00:25:33] that's the wall, right?

[00:25:36] HR people say, sure, I'll hire you without a degree.

[00:25:38] Sure, I'll hire you if you're formerly incarcerated.

[00:25:41] I put you into the process,

[00:25:42] get you to the hiring manager

[00:25:44] and the hiring manager's like, eh, eh.

[00:25:46] That's who's making that call.

[00:25:47] So one of the things that I'm advocating for

[00:25:50] is that we have a broader conversation in our culture.

[00:25:54] Like that says,

[00:25:55] you don't have to have the perfect background

[00:25:58] from the perfect schools, from the perfect companies.

[00:26:00] Like we have to relax those standards

[00:26:04] and relaxing doesn't mean not having-

[00:26:07] Lowering.

[00:26:07] Right, does not mean lowering.

[00:26:09] Relaxing doesn't mean lowering

[00:26:10] but it didn't matter anyway.

[00:26:12] I often tell when I was in the legal profession,

[00:26:16] we would have a requirement

[00:26:17] that you had to graduate top 10% of your class

[00:26:21] to come to the law firms that I worked at

[00:26:22] or two big law firms.

[00:26:24] And you had to be in the top 10% of your class.

[00:26:26] And I said, very little of our work

[00:26:29] requires someone to have been

[00:26:30] in the top 10% of their class.

[00:26:32] We should be honest, right?

[00:26:34] What we're doing is adding to the prestige

[00:26:36] by saying we're excluding people

[00:26:38] and that's how we are building our prestige.

[00:26:41] But the fact of the matter is 90% of this

[00:26:44] could be done by any reasonably good lawyer.

[00:26:47] So say top third of your class

[00:26:49] could do this work just fine.

[00:26:52] But we did it intentionally

[00:26:54] and hopefully these walls are coming down.

[00:26:56] We are relaxing the standards

[00:26:58] while not sacrificing quality.

[00:27:01] That's the pitch that we've got to make

[00:27:03] writ large to employers

[00:27:06] and employers mean hiring managers.

[00:27:09] Yes, so I wanted to pick up

[00:27:11] and it's a fair point because you're right.

[00:27:13] Talent acquisition's job isn't to hire the person.

[00:27:15] Hiring manager's job is to hire the person.

[00:27:18] I think the whole issue,

[00:27:20] I'm gonna speak probably too broadly.

[00:27:22] I think so much of this lands on your second point

[00:27:27] at the beginning of this, which is around risk.

[00:27:30] Right.

[00:27:31] And we are wired to minimize downside risk.

[00:27:37] Absolutely.

[00:27:38] Right and so you're right.

[00:27:39] I am a frontiersman and I seek to do things

[00:27:43] aspirationally because that's the way that I'm wired.

[00:27:46] Right.

[00:27:47] But as human beings,

[00:27:48] we are wired to protect ourselves.

[00:27:51] Absolutely.

[00:27:52] Right and so we use these proxies for risk management

[00:27:56] to help us be safe basically.

[00:28:00] I don't wanna get fired

[00:28:01] for having done something, right?

[00:28:03] And so yet what I love about what you guys do,

[00:28:09] what you do specifically Johnny

[00:28:11] is you're trying to change the conversation.

[00:28:14] Yes.

[00:28:15] You know, we're trying to open up people's minds

[00:28:17] to a new world and a new way of doing things

[00:28:21] that may feel risky and there will be mistakes.

[00:28:26] Of course.

[00:28:27] There will be mistakes,

[00:28:28] but managing to the lowest common denominator

[00:28:31] is just putting a bit in the mouth of the horse,

[00:28:34] keeping progress and I mean more social progress.

[00:28:38] That's right.

[00:28:39] Job satisfaction kinds of things

[00:28:41] is ultimately not serving people,

[00:28:46] but as we can continue to just open up the dialogue

[00:28:50] but also give, you know,

[00:28:51] I appreciate what you said like,

[00:28:53] I know this isn't a new topic

[00:28:55] but it's how do we continue to advance it

[00:28:58] and help, you know, as you say,

[00:29:00] both the talent people and the hiring managers

[00:29:03] actually execute against these things in their companies.

[00:29:08] Everybody wins.

[00:29:09] Right.

[00:29:10] And I got another thing that I'd like to add

[00:29:11] and I'm surprised you talk about this a lot

[00:29:14] but collect the data.

[00:29:16] It is amazing how compelling the data is.

[00:29:20] So we are right now doing that in my current role

[00:29:23] at Sherma as an employer

[00:29:25] is when we hire the non-traditional out of sector,

[00:29:30] so they're not from HR,

[00:29:31] they're not from the nonprofit there.

[00:29:33] When we hire those, let's measure how they do.

[00:29:37] You'd be surprised.

[00:29:38] The data will increasingly tell you

[00:29:40] that the formerly incarcerated retain longer

[00:29:44] and perform just as well.

[00:29:46] We know that people outside

[00:29:47] of our traditional nonprofit HR space

[00:29:51] perform better in our environment.

[00:29:53] So I think one of the things as HR professionals,

[00:29:56] we and anyone listening, if you're hiring manager

[00:29:59] is collect the data.

[00:30:01] The data will tell the story better than Bob

[00:30:05] or Johnny ever could.

[00:30:06] These are the people who came from outside

[00:30:09] and didn't have the traditional, you know,

[00:30:12] didn't meet those criteria,

[00:30:13] but look how they're performing.

[00:30:15] And now look at the folks who did

[00:30:18] and it's not to knock, you know,

[00:30:20] the folks who came from this space,

[00:30:21] whatever automotive industry, manufacturing, whatever.

[00:30:24] But I think you're going to see

[00:30:26] that they don't perform any worse than any other group

[00:30:30] which means the new framework is based in data.

[00:30:34] Like it's data.

[00:30:35] Then you de-risk it even more for the human brain.

[00:30:38] The human says, you know, human beings say,

[00:30:41] the data says this is not so risky.

[00:30:43] Right, and then you sell it into senior management

[00:30:47] as they come up with their cultural framework to say,

[00:30:50] yeah, yeah, they're going to be failures.

[00:30:52] But guess what?

[00:30:53] When we hire people from the industry, they fail.

[00:30:55] I'm in another role right now.

[00:30:57] I don't want to call a company out

[00:30:59] but we hired someone who had the perfect background

[00:31:02] from the perfect industry.

[00:31:04] I mean, industry, everything.

[00:31:06] And six months later, it didn't work out.

[00:31:08] The person we replaced that individual

[00:31:12] with noticed I'm very careful not to de-gender anything

[00:31:14] because I don't dispose anything

[00:31:16] but the replacement person didn't come from the industry

[00:31:19] and proved to be a freaking superstar.

[00:31:21] So when you can point to those examples

[00:31:24] you then help with the narrative shift.

[00:31:27] Yep, so again, I just would really want to encourage

[00:31:32] anybody who's listening and again, thank you, Johnny

[00:31:34] for the point around hiring managers in particular.

[00:31:38] I want to talk about how can people demonstrate

[00:31:42] learning agility, tell me about a time

[00:31:45] what's the most recent thing that you've learned?

[00:31:46] What's the most recent certification that you've gotten?

[00:31:51] Tell me, don't just say you're naturally curious.

[00:31:54] Show me how you continue to learn,

[00:31:56] how you continue to adapt.

[00:31:58] On emotional intelligence, I think that

[00:32:02] empathy, resilience and self-understanding

[00:32:07] would be three really key things.

[00:32:09] So how do you take something that's kind of squishy?

[00:32:12] When I'm interviewing somebody

[00:32:14] and I think resilience would be very near

[00:32:17] the top of the list because of all the change

[00:32:21] that's happening, the unpredictability of that change

[00:32:24] that being able to find people who are resilient

[00:32:27] is really, really key.

[00:32:28] And then thirdly on this contribution motivation,

[00:32:32] why do you care about this role at this company

[00:32:36] and the people that we seek to serve?

[00:32:39] And find because that passion,

[00:32:42] that desire to make a difference

[00:32:45] again will get you through.

[00:32:46] That will drive a lot of innovation

[00:32:49] but again, they'll also undergird

[00:32:52] the resilience piece too

[00:32:54] and everything doesn't go exactly right.

[00:32:56] I'm not bailing because I actually care

[00:32:59] about what we do here and want to make a difference.

[00:33:03] I can't teach tall and fast Johnny.

[00:33:06] If somebody shows up with some of those kinds of qualities,

[00:33:09] I'll figure out if you're a tight end

[00:33:11] or a linebacker or whatever.

[00:33:14] But when you show up with some of those innate qualities

[00:33:17] you're building I think the dream team

[00:33:20] that will get you, this is sort of Jim Collins,

[00:33:22] get the right people on the bus first.

[00:33:25] They'll figure out what seat they need to be in.

[00:33:27] They'll help you figure out your strategy

[00:33:30] but you've got to get the right people first

[00:33:32] then the roles will define themselves.

[00:33:34] So any kind of parting thoughts

[00:33:37] that you would want to leave listeners with

[00:33:39] on this whole skills space and the end of resumes?

[00:33:43] Yeah, like the parting thought is

[00:33:45] we have a birth rate problem in our country.

[00:33:47] We also have an immigration problem in our country

[00:33:51] and not that immigration is bad

[00:33:52] but that we haven't sorted it.

[00:33:54] So we have a talent shortage that is coming.

[00:33:57] If we think we have a war for talent now

[00:33:59] over the next decade, we're really gonna see it.

[00:34:02] Gen Z, millennials didn't have as many children.

[00:34:05] So we've got to rethink how we exclude talent

[00:34:10] from the talent acquisition process these days

[00:34:13] because it's gonna hurt us.

[00:34:14] We're not hurting, I mean,

[00:34:15] we're gonna hurt them in the short term

[00:34:17] but we're gonna hurt our workplaces

[00:34:18] if we don't think differently about what talent is

[00:34:22] and change the way that we've thought

[00:34:24] about the requirements and I love it again.

[00:34:27] We need to figure out how to end the resume

[00:34:30] as we've known it and used it in the past.

[00:34:32] Amen, awesome.

[00:34:34] Well, Johnny, as always,

[00:34:35] thanks for letting me kind of opine

[00:34:36] on that one a little bit.

[00:34:38] It's just, as you can tell,

[00:34:39] a topic that is very near and dear to my heart

[00:34:41] and I think ultimately serves the best interests

[00:34:43] of both the employers and the candidates when done well.

[00:34:46] So with that, everybody thank you

[00:34:48] for taking a few minutes out of your day

[00:34:50] to the work wire and to watch us.

[00:34:53] If you're watching us on YouTube, please subscribe.

[00:34:56] If you're listening to this as a podcast,

[00:34:58] which many of you do,

[00:35:00] please rate and review.

[00:35:01] We wanna make sure that as many people

[00:35:03] who are interested in these kinds of topics can find us

[00:35:05] but in the meantime, Johnny, have an amazing weekend.

[00:35:09] That's right.

[00:35:12] Is it the weekend or the W's board?

[00:35:14] Yes, yes.

[00:35:16] That's what it's for.

[00:35:17] Awesome, thanks everyone, bye-bye.

[00:35:20] Check out career.club for personalized help

[00:35:22] with your job search.

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