This Week, In Recruiting - Issue 173

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Open Kitchen: Review of Recfest, Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump or the England's Triumph in Euro2024?

Most of you know that this newsletter is all about recruitment, with Open Kitchen being an opening essay where I share some thoughts on whats been on my mind this past week.

It's been an incredibly busy and unusual week and I don't think I'm going to be dissociate enough to write about something which didn't involve this incidents, so for today I'm just going to talk about them in order to order my thoughts. 5 things which were significant to me this week - lets talk about them:

1. Lessons in Team Work from Kate Richardson-Walsh, OBE

I attended a superb breakfast event at Mortimer House last week, hosted by our friends Instant Impact and Flexa. It's always great to hear from elite sports professionals on individual and team performance. Former England field hockey captain and Olympic gold medallist Kate Richardson-Walsh OBE gave a really thought provoking talk on the performance culture which delivered Gold to England in 2016 Rio Olympics. I'll write more on this in future, but the key points which resonated most on the day were:

• Trust relationships are key to both individual and team performance. In any collective endeavour, trust that the individual will not be singled out for blame in case of failure was critical to ensure reduced instances of such failures occurring. If you are going to take a penalty to win the match, the taker has to be psychologically assured that - score or miss - the rest of the team would be fully behind her. We can all understand how this sense of psychological safety might unlock elite performance - you can go out and execute free from concern of potential condemnation. For a leader of a team, the question is how to ensure such trust relationships can be built?
• Self accountability for veterans. Motivation dips when you're on the downward stage of your career. Kate was brave enough to volunteer how own example of such declining standards when she was at the end of her career, and recalled an incident when she was called out by a junior member of the squad for doing 'just enough' rather than pushing to the limit every time. In elite competition, obviously you need to immediately up your game, but we have different questions to ask in the corporate setting, as we need to accommodate such natural decline in motivation with responsive job design rather than constantly 'force up' performance from minds and bodies who are checking out.
• Returning high status team member. Teams are made of individual relationships which takes time to build. Whenever the team composition changes, so does the team dynamic. We've all been in teams when the new team member is an alpha dog and wants to immediately take over. Team performance invariably dips as incumbent leaders resist the interloper. A great example of how to handle such a situation - ritualise the onboarding, especially of the high status incomer, make it clear what the expectations are to the newcomer and find a way to personalise the welcome from each member, so that there is no requirement to 'win over the team'. It was a fascinating anecdote from the team, and I'm now resisting the urge to find out who this character was, even though the real story is one of team re-formation, which is always required when significant members leave or join.

2. House of Lords & the Requirement for AI / Automation experts

Hat tip to Evan White for extending me an invitation to the House of Lords, for dinner hosted by Lord Nat Wei of Shoreditch and Angela Hood , MD of ThisWay Global . We not only had a fantastic dinner - with the powers kindly turning a blind eye to my less-than-discreet livestreaming the England vs Netherlands match on my phone - but also a fantastic presentation of a service which I think can fulfil an important dual role of both up skilling people in AI, and then deploying those people to help organisations move from ideation to implementation when it comes to AI.

We've been wrestling with AI for 18 months now; all of us have tried ChatGPT. But very few of us have operationalised AI in such a way to substantively exploit its benefits. I count myself amongst this number, and my own reflections on the reasons why come down to this: people who are already at max load do not have capacity to learn new tools no matter how great the promise. It's changing the wheels of the car, whilst we're on the road - we can't do it no matter however much we need the new tyre.

AI / Automation specialists are required to come in and do the implementations for us; these might eventually be in-house resource (think Recruitment Ops, Marketing Ops, Revenue Ops people), but for now they are more likely to be external consultants. There is a market there for a TA folks out of work to stake a claim - TA Automation Consultant I think will be a thing, and the conversation with Lord Wei, Ms Hood and people like the two reprobates pictured above increased my confidence in this market. Somebody will build a professional service around this - right now it is the big consultancies, but I rather hope it might come organically from within the industry. Could ThisWay Global have the solution? Quite possibly - more to come from this - follow my account here if you want to know more.

3. RecFest24

The past week has seen LinkedIn taken over by people posting about Recfest24. I can assure you these were organic, unprompted posts - just people who attended who had such a great experience that they needed to share it with the wider community. I count myself as one of these - this is the recruitment event of the year for TA / HR professionals and you really have to go if you have the means to do it.

Too many highlights to mention but a few which stood out for me:

• Sven Elbert opening talking on the Inspire stage. Sven suffered a little from the early start as there were less people in the crowd that it deserved, but for me it was perhaps the most important talk of the day - an excellent breakdown of the state of TA, of the recruitment technology landscape and of the adoption of AI in TA. I'm not sure of the T&C's of this but if you get the chance to review this slide deck I would highly recommend it.

• I had a great time on the Scotty AI stand conducting rapid fire interviews with TA professionals on how they are using AI. There will be a video collage of the interviews coming out which I think will tell a similar story to Sven's talk but via the commentary from active operators on video. Well done especially to Carina Mouro and Catia Amadour who operated as the awesome film crew!

Connecting and reconnecting with so many people in industry - many of whom you know in digital life but have not yet had the opportunity in material life. I spent most of my free time taking selfies with all these cool cats. There is definitely something that happens when you have positive contact with a person, at 2+2 = 5 type of energy is created. Max this out to 5000 people connecting with people in the same way, and you have a huge surge of energy into the industry. Huge credit to Jamie Leonard, Bobby Leonard, Lois Holland, Matt Jones and the rest of the incredible team at The Recruitment Events Co for making this event happen. It was the 10th anniversary and one worthy of it. Can't wait for RecFest Nashville - are you going?

4. A Second Trump Presidency & Implications for TA / HR

The shocking attempt on Donald Trump's life over the weekend has become the dominant story on the planet, not least because of the incredible iconography that emerged in the aftermath. I think TA / HR has been head-in-sand on the prospect of a Trumpian return to the White House but he looks odds on to do it now, despite establishment attempts to remove him as an option for the American people.

Whatever you think of Donald Trump - and I am no friend or ally of his - his personal courage, literally under fire, is undeniable and we as humans rally to those who show this type of courage. This is Trump's Yeltsin-on-the-tank moment and I think he rides it all the way to a landslide in November.

There will be implications for TA / HR. We don't talk about it much in our industry but TA / HR are culturally the most progressive of all the functions in business - it is us who lead the way in diversity, equity and inclusion, and us who argue for the requirement of social justice as a component of capitalism. That Trump does not share these values is an understatement. In fact, he is actively hostile and almost certain to codify the wokelash which has been apparent in some sectors of the corporate world, especially amongst tech CEO's.

All of this will be very hard cheese indeed for TA / HR, who may find themselves at odds with other departments in business (sales, culturally to the right?), at a time when operational efficiency remains the guiding principle. We can expect further retreat of the DEI agenda, and perhaps further diminution of the function.

This will not solely an American challenge btw; Europe has been complacent over the past 4 years, overly thankful for a Biden presidency, despite lack of any evidence that there are any substantive benefits for having a Democrat putatively in charge rather than Mr Trump. There has been a failure to prepare for Trump 2.0 - a President, which in case anyone has forgotten, has talked about leaving NATO, as well as other institutions which uphold the rules based international order, and who had no hesitation in imposing tariffs on European imports as part of the America First agenda. The time for European autonomy from the US was yesterday, but it may well be too late now to escape the collateral damage of whatever happens in the White House.

I'm going to have to do a Brainfood Live on this - let me know if you're interested in contributing your views to the TA / HR implications of Trump 2.0 for both US, Europe and beyond.

5. Talent Density Isn't Enough - England Euro 2024

The first thing to say is that it is a very significant achievement to reach the finals of a major international football tournament. And, but for a Dani Olmo header off the line in the final minutes of last nights final, we might be writing a different story today. However, it has to be said that England's performances in Euro 2024 have been subpar, struggling in every game and relying upon individual moments of brilliance or inspiration to get through the contests. This, despite a very kind path to the final in which England were on paper superior to every opponent apart from the last.

It got me thinking about a concept which has been circulating in the TA / HR space this year - talent density. Talent density is 'skill per capita', the increase of which is critical to overall collective performance, because having better people trumps everything else.

England's underachievement tells us that Talent Density is not enough in of itself. There is no question of the quality of England's individual players - likely there is not XI or squad of 22 which is stronger - but it was insufficient against better organised teams playing to a clearer strategy. Something to think about when we go about hiring the top 10% in every case - how much of the company performance is an aggregation of individual capability vs the collective organisation of variable talents?

Another one for Brainfood Live methinks. Anyways, I am going to end the essay here. Loads more to talk about but we've all got to get on with our respective week's. Let me know what you think of this style of essay - shorter snippets of stuff both inside and outside the world of TA / HR - good or bad? Let me know in comments because I would love your guidance on whether I should continue to write in this style. Thanks

Now out of the kitchen, onto the lounge ??

What's Going On?

Big List of Recruiter Events to Attend in 2024

Big List of Recruiting and HR Events to Attend in 2024 - updated folks. Coming back from Recfest, no question my enthusiasm for in-person events has only grown. Make sure you check out this spreadsheet - add any you think are missing - and get attending some of these amazing events. Btw, we might as well start adding 2025 events also, so get cracking with this also!

Founders Focus - Ep48 - Sam Dhesi, CEO of Popp , Tuesday 16th July, 11am BST

Founders Focus is the interview series where we get up and personal with the recruitment tech founders who are changing the way we work today. I've seen few examples of genuine breakthrough technologies bring AI to the recruitment market, but Popp may well be one of them. A Personal Co-pilot for every recruiter on the planet? Yes please! Lets speak to founder Sam Dhesi on what made him launch this business. We're on Tuesday 16th, 11am. Register here

We Are Developers World Congress , 17-19 July, Berlin, Germany

15,000 developers from all over the world will be attending this event in Berlin. I'm going to getting together with a few recruitment friends to try and build bridges with the developer community - mainly by demystifying recruiter behaviour! Get yourself along to this event if you're around - great for tech recruiters to experience a developer first conference. See you all there!

Understand Quality of Hire with a Person’s Web Presence , Thursday 18th July, 6pm BST

So this one is going to be cool - can you assess QoH based on person's digital footprint? I'm in conversation with a man who thinks you can. The Ben Mones story is fascinating example of how a challenging incident sparked an idea, which has subsequently gone on to become a unique assessment solution in our space. Huge amounts to talk about here - we're on Tuesday 18th July, 1pm EDT / 6pm BST. Register here

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep264 - How to Ethically Implement AI into TA , Friday 2pm BST

We're in a strange place when it come to AI. We've all had a play and we probably are all pretty convinced that it can really help improve recruiter productivity. We're held back though with concerns on privacy, policy and direction. I'm going to platform as many people as I can who are doing what they can to educate the industry on the how-to. We're going be with Euan Cameron and Andrew Wood, Co-founders of Willo, who have conducted a research piece on how AI can be ethically implemented into TA. Register here folks.

If you have an event, webinar or podcast going on next week and want it featured on next week's newsletter,?comment below?with the link and event details. Don't forget to at mention me so that I see it

End Notes

I am on my travels again this week visiting Berlin again, this time hanging around for 5 days. I think the aftermath of a big sports tournament is a good time to go, especially as accommodation prices crash down. Let me know if you're in town and fancy meeting up - I'll probably organise a small get together.

Cheers

Hung

Hung Lee is the curator of Recruiting Brainfood , and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both if you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in world of work.