#8 - We're all stuck at a rest stop on the NJ Turnpike

This past weekend, I drove my family back from vacation in the Outer Banks, North Carolina to our home in Massachusetts. This is easily a drive that takes all day but has become increasingly easier each year as the kids get older and the iPad entertainment gets better.

After driving for 7 hours, we finally made it over the Delaware Memorial Bridge and into New Jersey and were looking to stop for lunch. Should be simple. Nope. We were on the Jersey - turnpike. The Jersey Turnpike has rest stops with food options, yet they are limited - limited to options that should have died out 20 years ago. Arby's, Nathan's hot dogs, Roy Rogers, and more garbage you don't want to eat.

I had been tipped off by my sister who was ahead of me that I should not go to the first stop as it was a hellscape of souls who had been stuck in bridge traffic and just needed to find the first place to relieve themselves. I noped right past it and eventually stopped at the James Fenimore Cooper stop. That at least had a Burger King where I could at least get a chicken sandwich.

The place was packed, yet as I looked at the line for Burger King, there didn't seem to be a huge line. We went this way and quickly found out why. They had replaced the cash registers manned by people with self-ordering kiosks manned by no one. Every patron made it through ordering their food pretty quickly but then got sent to a holding area where we hoped our food would meet us. The problem was that all the customers who had already ordered and paid for our food had no idea what was happening next. There was no board of order numbers so we could see where we were in line. All the workers were busy behind the counter with only one person yelling random numbers while we all held our numbers and hoped he called ours. It reminded me of Bloodsport and all the bettors.

The Burger King had successfully automated his ordering process but stopped there so the basic customer service problem remained - long waits and confusion. I was tired and probably slightly delerious, but I couldn't shake the thought that this was a perfect example of the problems in tech today. In striving to cut costs, companies have taken a clog in the process and simply pushed it further into the pipe. For example, LinkedIn Easy Apply makes it super easy to apply for jobs, but hiring managers get overwhelmed with combing through hundreds, if not thousands of applicants. GenAI has gotten us through initial screening and interview scheduling, but hiring managers are still manually managing the next steps. There has to be a middle ground where we automate the mundane and guide the rest.

On to this week's Wrap. This edition features highlights from Lance Haun , Eightfold , Josh Bersin , HiBob , and Ben Eubanks . Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Psyche! Job growth is actually down over 800K

There's been a disconnect between what the government reports on job growth and what HR practitioners and job seekers are seeing all year. Turns out, job growth was nearly 30% less than the initially reported number. Whoops! Thankfully, Lance Haun has emerged from the woods to tell us what this means in his latest Work Leader Weekly. Read and subscribe so you can get more Lance in your life.

Josh Bersin and Eightfold team up and create The HR Career Navigator

This is a smart move for both companies. For the Josh Bersin Academy, it adds to their growing resources for HR professionals looking to become HR leaders. For Eightfold, it further demonstrates how their AI capabilities can be spun off to create learning opportunities directly in front of their target audience. The AI components of analyzing a resume for skills and adjacent skills will be widespread in a short time and this allows HR professionals to take a test drive with their own resume with trusted partners. I'm looking forward to seeing where this is 6 months to a year from now. The full announcement from Bersin is here.

Expectation of Losing One’s Job at Record High in NY Fed Survey

Welp, this one hit home. The share of people who think they’re likely to be unemployed in the next four months reached a record high in a Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey of consumer expectations that dates back to 2014. The survey found that 4.4% of workers expect to lose their jobs in the next four months. Additionally, satisfaction in wages, benefits, and promotion opportunities are all down from 2023. More doom and gloom stats in the full article on Bloomberg.

2024 Trends in Talent Acquisition from HiBob

HiBob 's Mike Kaupe teamed with Ben Eubanks to go through their 2024 survey about the pulse of the talent acquisition market. Among the findings:

• Onboarding is the top TA priority for 2024, up 4 spots from last year
• Only 15% of companies have a personalized, engaging, and compliant hiring process
• 70% of candidates are using AI to "game" the interview and apply process
• Following the salary of a position, "a smooth, easy application process that respects my time" is the #2 candidate priority

Watch the video above and download your copy of the full report here.

Spotlight - "Pommel Horse guy" Stephen Nedoroscik

We all need a dose of positive news.

Three cheers to Olympic gold medalist Stephen Nedoroscik on being named to the cast of Dancing with the Stars for it's 33rd season. Stephen helped the US Men's gymnastics team win their first medal (bronze) in 16 years at the Paris Olympics and won a bronze medal himself on the Pommel Horse. Amazingly enough, he did all of this without being able to see. Stephen suffers from Strabismus, a misalignment of the eyes that he's had since birth. He wears corrective lenses but can't wear them during the pommel house as they'd "fly off," so he's essentially doing everything by feel.

What I love about Stephen's story is the inspiration he provides to others. Stephen is from central Massachusetts and trains at the gym several towns over from me. I live in a small town, so I often see local updates from other parents on Facebook. One mom whose daughter is in class with mine has an older son who does gymnastics and trains at that same gym. I've seen her posts about how tough it is for him to continue in what some feel is a "girls' sport." Before they left for Paris, Stephen and his team visited the gym to meet with the kids. Now this kid can say he's training in the footprints of a champion.

Wiki of the Week - James Fenimore Cooper

History, mystery and more from my wanderings on Wikipedia

Since I was trapped at his rest stop, I might as well look him up. James Fenimore Cooper grew up in Cooperstown New York, which was founded by his father. He went to Yale University at age 13, yet was expelled after setting up a prank that involved blowing up another student's door and had already managed to lock a donkey in a school recitation room. He later served in the Navy and became an author, writing The Last of the Mohegans, which is widely considered to be a classic and the inspiration for the great Daniel Day Lewis film shown above. To learn more about James Fenimore Cooper, check out his Wikipedia page.