This Week, In Recruiting - Issue 55

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Sponsor segment in today's TWIR donated to One Tree Planted

One Tree Planted was the first charitable initiative I conducted with Recruiting Brainfood.

As a then frequent international traveller, I was conscious of my excessive carbon footprint and wanted to find a way to offset at least some of the exhaust I was generating by visiting the brainfood community in person like I was doing.

It is a global charity that plants 1 x tree for every 1 x USD donated, focusing on a number of critically important environments across the world.

When I ran the first 'Brainfood Forest' campaign, we managed to plant several thousand trees(!) and as it is my birthday coming up (27) again, I may well be restarting the campaign in a couple months time.

This is not yet a fund raising pitch, but more of an awareness campaign for you take an interest in this initiative and perhaps get involved yourself in being a responsible custodian of the planet. You can sign up to be a member here

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Open Kitchen: Thinking About Thinking

I've discovered a new favourite word - metacognition. This is the study of thinking, more precisely how we think, in order that we can better regulate that thinking, especially during times of stress.

It's going to be the topic of my keynote at Talent Palooza later this week, as clearly we are all under stress and I suspect that better understanding as to how our brains operat might help us cultivate healthier cognitive habits, useful in dealing with the unpredictable future we have in ahead of us.

Five things to know on how the brain works....

1. Cost of Cognition

The first thing to know is that thinking is expensive. The average human brain weighs only 2% of the body, yet consumes up to 20% of the calories collected by the body. This disproportionate allocation of resources to the brain tells us that operating as a human being in a complex society requires a great deal of cognitive effort. As such, we have evolved shortcuts to reduce energy expenditure as much as possible - these are the heuristics or 'rules of thumb' that we are routinely use to go about in every day life.

These heuristics are valuable not because they are perfectly correct all the time but because they calorifically inexpensive and will do most of the time. We do not spend time thinking too much about most of the things we do. Prior experimentation has already proven the 'will do' case and we go with this until such a moment when it becomes 'will no longer do' and we need to reevaluate.

In recruitment, we have a heightened awareness of this phenomenon because they are the root behind discriminatory practice that takes place in hiring decisions, something that recruiters have a particular responsibility to combat.

2. Filling in the Gaps

Cognitive effort is expended not only in thinking about the world, but also in trying to perceive it. We are constantly bombarded with sensory data, and processing everything we perceive would overwhelm the limited cognitive resources we have at our disposal. Hence instead of perceiving reality as it is, we generally only pick out relatively few salient data points and fill the gaps in with the rest.

The above picture was made famous because this black and white image was converted into the optical illusion by the simple expedient of using different coloured cross hatch lines across the T-shirts that the girls are wearing in the photo. We can only truly perceive the colour of the lines, but we see the fill in colour of the shirts because our minds have basically coloured them in for us.

In recruiting, we imagine that the same operations readily apply. We do not neutrally observe a human face, we pick out a few salient data points (has a beard, has dark brown eyes) and we fill the rest in with whatever information we have summon in from the recesses of our brains. The implications should be pretty clear for us understand.

3. Routinely Move from Conscious to Subconscious

A further technique to reduce 'cognitive load' is to move ideas & knowledge from conscious to the subconscious operations. When we are consciously thinking about something - 'being intentional' in modern parlance - we are spending a great deal of cognitive energy in developing the idea, building a theory into which that idea fits, perhaps thinking about how that idea can help us with something we want to do in the world.

However, we do not keep reprocessing that idea once we have confidence that it is true or at least, that it works. We move it into routine, keep practicing that routine until it becomes habit. Then we don't actually think about it at all - it has moved from the conscious to the subconscious, precisely so that we don't have to.

This is why it can be very difficult to break a habit, because we are frequently not aware of that habit doing it until the after the misdeed has been done. I assure you - now that I think about it - that I always have a cookie with my cup of afternoon tea. It is absolutely a subroutine in the subconscious part of my brain.

4. Validation by Social Testing

The pattern we have seen so far is that we are doing an awful lot of 'intelligent guessing' - how do we know that we are on the right track? Well, it seems that we use social learning as the main mechanism for removing erroneous guesses from our overstretched minds. We are constantly communicating our ideas with our fellow humans in society, and in so doing comparing our bests guesses with everyone elses best guesses.

Unpopular ideas tend to get purged in this environment, either through being abandoned by thinkers who discover more compelling ideas held by others (cognitive inexpensive, as they some other human being has spent energy on them), or they become moderated away as the social cost of bearing dissenting ideas becomes prohibitive to those who hold them. Note that this still occurs even if we are studying on our own - the words written in the pages of a book are still the ideas of another human being - they have just been asynchronised from time and space by being written down.

5. Two Ways of Changing Our Minds

So how exactly do we change our minds? Two methods stand out - direct exposure to incontrovertible contradiction - we are able to falsify our previously held beliefs through direct experience (i.e. I did not think Covid was a thing, now I am intubated in ICU), or through silent abandonment to due the prohibitive social cost of holding onto those ideas (i.e. I was never anti-Vax, I can't believe those people)

Direct experiential contradiction requires conscious thinking - we at least internally learn our mistake and reposition, whilst silent abandonment is often subconscious - we never admit to the mistake and instead retroactively maintain that we have long held these actually newly held positions.

Note, we know that argument with others does not do either job effectively, as we are able to retreat into echo chambers which re-validates our previously held beliefs. A great deal of the stress of online discourse comes from oscillating between groups of people who guessed similarly / dissimilarly to us, with the most obvious outcome of us finally retreating into our group and not venturing out again so as not to be further exposed to 'those people'.

What does all this mean for Recruiters?

It means that removing bias is going to be tremendously difficult task; indeed, as it is essentially trying to combat evolutionary processes which have been going on for billions of years, it may be futile objective, the continual pursuit of which would itself be a significant stressor to already overstretched psyche. If our plan is to change minds, presentation of facts (or 'data' ) is not going to do it - the person needs to directly experience incontrovertible evidence which contradicts their priors or they need to be continually exposed to a social group whose intelligent guesses are different from their own.

Perhaps the best solution is to step back from evangelism (my guess is better than yours, pls convert) and develop a mindset and organisational culture which is more accepting of a wider range of intelligent guesses. We can then focus on orientating principles which give more opportunity and more incentive for the 'right guesses' to be made by each individual member of that group.

I dunno, just thinking out loud here. This second part of this talk isn't done yet, so I had better get started doing it.

Out of the kitchen, onto the lounge ??

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What's in the News?

iCIMS acquire Candidate-ID

I'm not sure if I've ever had more pleasing news of an acquisition than this one. Both companies great friends of Brainfood, and Candidate-ID in particular led by Adam Gordon , who has become over the years a good friend, as well as an exceptional contributor to the brainfood community in general. I hope that he and Scot McCrae and all the team at Candidate-ID get a well deserved break following the news last week of their acquisition by iCIMS. Read all about it here . I just hope we don't lose these guys from the industry to retirement, however tempting that may be!

HackerRank raise $60 Million Series D round

Time to go for all the marbles in tech assessment - HackerRank raise another big round to fuel growth their global tech assessment platform. As remote working continues to distribute tech jobs across the planet, the need for employers to improve trust signals and quality control will continue to drive growth in tech assessment tooling. How long before it become mandatory for cloud based coding assessments to be conducted? It's a predictable future and one in which is now a race to the finish line. TechCrunch with the news here

Apploi raise $25 million Series B Round

I first met Apploi CEO Adam Lewis a long time ago when I was doing my first podcast series of cool HR tech startups. Fantastic to see Apploi moving forward with this healthcare worker focus. It is likely to be a hiring crunch for some time. Techcrunch with the report here

If you are a recruitment service provider or technology business and have any news to share,?comment below,?this is your application to get into next week's addition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it

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What's On Offer?

TalentPools.io has spun up RemoteUkraine - Jobs for Ukrainian Refugees.

Latest from TalentPools.io CEO Iman Fadaei : 6000+ refugees, 1600+ employers from 70 countries, 2000+ jobs, 2000+ job applications, to date. This is straightforward folks - if you have a job to post, do it here: https://www.remoteukraine.org/

If you are a recruitment service provider or recruitment technology vendor have any?exclusive?offer for the community,?comment below?with your offer in order to be included in next week's edition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it.

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What's Going On?

Talent Palooza , Thur 7 April, The Hoi Polloi, Melbourne.

So this has just been sold out, so no real need for me to be promoting this here, but I thought I might as well let you know what I'll be doing this week. Going to be giving a talk about Metacognition - thinking about thinking - and how to stay sane in a crazy world. Hope you folks enjoy it, I had actually better start writing the second part of it...

Founders Focus - Ep24 - Up close and personal with Martin Herbst, CEO of JobAdder , Friday 8th April, 12.00pm AEST

Last minute booking but delighted to get the chance to speak with Martin Herbst, the new CEO of JobAdder. What is like to be running an Australian powerhouse, aiming to expand to the other markets outside of APAC? How does leadership differ between US and Australia? Loads to talk about here, so register here

New Perspectives - Unbiased Day 2022 , Thurs 28 April, 8.15 - 11.30

Yes indeed folks, we are talking about DEIB and why the shift to remote is on the one hand a boon for equity but on the other reveals some new inclusion challenges which we recruiters need to be aware. Free to register on this, so get to it?here

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 @ mention me so that I see it

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Who's Hiring?

Head of People , Tender Foods, Boston, MA, USA

Talent Consultants , TQ Solutions, Remote Global

Talent Partner , Singular Talent, Cardiff, UK

Senior Talent Executive , Singular Talent, Cardiff, UK

Talent Partner , Solutions Driven, Remote Global

Human Resources Business Partner , Brad's Deals, Remote USA

Recruitment / Talent Specialist , TransFICC, London, UK

Recruiter (Contract) , JLL, Remote USA

Head of People & Culture (m/f/d) , Alasco, Munich, Germany

Talent Acquisition Sourcer - Technology , JLL Technologies, Remote USA

Recruiter , JLL, Dallas, TX, USA

Senior Executive Recruiter , JLL, Remote USA

GTM TA Manager (Remote UK, EMEA or South Africa) , Join Talent, Remote Global

GTM Talent Partner (Remote UK, EMEA, South Africa) , Join Talent, Remote Global

GTM Talent Search Partner (Remote UK, EMEA, South Africa) , Join Talent, Remote Global

Tech TA Manager (Remote UK, EMEA or South Africa) , Join Talent, Remote Global

Tech Talent Partner (Remote UK/EMEA/South Africa) , Join Talent, Remote Global

Tech Talent Search Partner (Remote UK/EMEA/South Africa) , Join Talent, Remote Global

Senior Recruiter (German Speaker) , Cielo Talent, Berlin, Germany

Partner - Life Sciences, SE Asia , Horton International, Remote Global

Principal Consultant - Logistics, SE Asia , Horton International, Remote Global

If you want to get your job featured, post jobs on the Brainfood Jobs Job Board?here

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Who's Moving?

Martyn Redstone joins HeyDay by Hootsuite as Strategic Account Executive, in a sad loss for the recruiting industry but a big gain for enterprise sales sector. Few people in the business are are fluent with Conversational AI than Martyn - his newsletter 'Own the Conversation ' is one everyone in this space should subscribe to. Congratulations Martyn and look forward to seeing how our paths might still cross!

Liz Toga joins TradeWindow as Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist having previously spent time with companies such as SAP, Blackboard, Wunderman and MOBI. Like I keep saying in this segment, so many people have much better CV's than I!

Nikola Dimov joins Akzo Nobel as Global Talent Director after 7 years at Brown-Forman and previously 5 year stint at British American Tobacco. Some serious TA leadership experience in each of these roles, this move looks like a premium hire.

Michael McDonald joins Infogrid as Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist, having previously worked with Elements, Skyscanner and Sainsbury's

Joseph Scott joins BlackRock as VP of Executive Search, having previously worked at M&G Investments in various recruiting lead roles. Super interesting and confidential space to operate in, though I wonder what can be done with the awesome network that must be inevitably built as you do this work!

Dee Reid joins Galliford Try as Head of Resourcing, having previous led resourcing at organisations like Accenture, University of Edinburgh, Robertson Group and Maersk Oil. This is some heavyweight recruiting experience here. Got to get Dee onto a Brainfood Live I think...

Angeliki Papoutsani joins Blueground as Executive Recruitment Manager, after spending 3 years with PwC, having previously worked also with Tesla, Philipps and VEON.

Finally, congratulations to the Tracey Middlemass moves up to Senior Vice President at Cielo Talent, Stephen Killilea Hannon promoted again Talent Acquisition Manager at Liberty IT and Laura A. Schlessinger goes up to Partner at Empirical Consultant Solutions.

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business,?and feel the wider community needs to know about it,?comment below?with the details and see it featured in next weeks issue.?Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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What Are You Doing?

Louise Triance is hustling for speakers for next years Recruitment Agency Expo 2022. This is the biggest event of its type in the UK, and a fantastic opportunity for in-industry professionals to raise your profile. Entrepreneur / consultant / business owner types, no excuse on this - get on it. Also, this is a superb opportunity for under represented practitioners to get up, take part and be seen. How many times has a Chinese person been up on stage here? Maybe none (I haven't!). So lets be having you - step and apply to speak here

Kevin Grossman , President of Talent Board HR, is already starting to collect data from the most comprehensive CX benchmark report here is. If you care about CX at enterprise level, you should check this out now.

Finally congratulations to Vanessa Raath , who celebrates the 3rd year anniversary of her business, The Talent Hunter. Anyone who knows Vanessa will know how much value add she gives to the community and it's a fantastic achievement to see her business thriving. Congratulations Vanessa - look forward to celebrating the next anniversary!

If you are doing something new,?comment below?with what it is and share a link to where you want people to go. Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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End Notes

So, as you know, I am Down Under and excited to be starting 3 weeks here visiting Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. There are going to be Meetups in each of these cities, so I hope we will get the chance to see you then, if not, I hope we can make a connection in some other way.

Going to be interesting trying to do some brainfood in a different time / place, lets see if I can do it ??

Enjoy your week everybody

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.