Episode 75

Andy McLean on AI, Technology and Digital Transformation in Modern Hiring Practices

TIM: We're live with Andy. Welcome to the Objective Hiring Show. Thank you so much for joining us.

ANDY: Thanks for having me.

TIM: it's our pleasure and it would be great to start with just if we could get a little bit of an introduction about yourself and what you're currently doing in your current role.

ANDY: Yeah. So I'm Andy McLean. I'm the data and analytics director at Circle. So Circle, we are a digital transformation consultancy. So we help businesses from all really different sectors modernize their business operations through Microsoft technologies. So just helping them to digitize a lot of processes, help them with automation and deliver. better data for decision making ready to help them run their businesses more effectively.

TIM: That's a great intro and a great starting point. Then the first thing I wanted to cover off, which is around digital transformation and the recruitment process, because it's not often something you hear a lot about. And so I'd love to get your thoughts on how, yeah, that digitization can really help the hiring and recruitment process of organizations.

ANDY: Yeah, so we've been through a recruitment process ourself over the last couple of years. We've grown quite significantly taking on new people in short, such a short space of time. And I think historically where we see people in all sorts of aspects of the business, but also. Very much applicable to the hiring processes is using systems to help automate and collate information about candidates. So we actually used a tool ourselves that helped us collate those CVs from people and collaborate centrally as a hiring team on the individuals that we screened. And just to make that process much more fluid, I think, and To have it joined up a lot more. I think maybe historically these kind of processes might have been managed in disconnected systems or even spreadsheets. I'm sure we see a lot of people, with lists of of people to see and feedback on people whether that be paper based or whether it's in Excel and then again, you like anything in any business, you need all these Silos of data connected to really have that true overall picture of the process. And it would say with hiring that really helped us in terms of having a single location where we had all of the feedback, the CVs, the comments from different people's interactions with the candidates, where we could get that kind of holistic view of where people were in the process.

TIM: It sounds like then you implemented an applicant tracking system of some kind. Is that what you put in place?

ANDY: Absolutely. Yep. So we actually used a workable for that. And it was just, again, we could feed into it the relevant bits of information from each. different person's perspective, because it's a, is a hiring team. It isn't one person. So you really need that central location where people can go into it with the confidence. Now that's the latest position on that candidate, where they are in the journey, how we've spoken to them, how they've scored maybe in initial assessments or a technical test. And it's really transparent then and really clear to us in terms of who's where and how the process is progressing.

TIM: Yeah. Workables are products we've actually used. That was the first ATS we tried ourselves a few years ago. So I know the product well, and yeah, if you. Currently working in an organization that doesn't have any ATS at all. And as you say, you're doing things with spreadsheets, with word docs, with sometimes literally, as you say, pen and paper, the returns to moving towards some kind of proper centralized system, I think are pretty staggering. It, can you almost elaborate a little bit more on what you saw as the benefits of doing that transformation yourselves?

ANDY: saved time. The thing with digital transformation is that the almost default you're going to get is a save in people's time. The automation. Yeah, this is actually a workflow built into it. As you said the candidate journey is a process. People will be a different. Areas or different points on that journey, whether it's an initial conversations being had, maybe it's just a CV that's been received. But also you're managing multiple roles typically at the same time as well. So it isn't like this whole complexity around each job individually needs managing, but also when you hire it for multiple roles in different teams, you need that centralized view. Otherwise you run the risk of it being disconnected. And actually you might have someone come for one particular role that is actually more suitable for a different role. So you want that all in one place. So the key thing for us was the saving of people's time and effort, whereas it was probably being done manually before we've been able to, speed up that process, which actually helped us deliver a better service back to the candidates themselves, because they got a much more consolidated and consistent feedback or touch points with us as a business as well. So it wasn't just internal benefits. It was actually for the candidates and overall everybody benefited from that. So more joined up and that digital solution rather than being done manually.

TIM: Yeah, I think once you have, as you say, the multiple roles. Or for a role, multiple people involved in the process, then you really need something to centralize it. Otherwise it's going to be a mishmash of individual threads in different inboxes and emails, and someone's WhatsAppping a candidate, someone's reaching out to them on LinkedIn. Like it can explode into some pretty chaotic mess pretty quickly. If you don't have some tool to centralize everything.

ANDY: Yeah, we saw the different people will have different involvements. Head of people, for example, would be very much involved in this dealing with the candidates. Yet someone like myself might come in for a third stage interview or a second stage interview. So I haven't necessarily got the time to stay on top of the overall process or go digging around to find out what we've done with people. Yeah, the system itself actually allowed it to book. Interviews into my diary, give me that summary of the interactions to date, the high, the highlights of the person's CV, the relevance of the job roles that we'd put on. So all this kind of pre screening essentially making it more me more informed as a, as an interviewer about this person. So I can actually have a better interview experience rather than having to go and dig all this out myself.

TIM: If I think back to some of the really large enterprises we've worked with and spoken to over the years, I've noticed that there often is a quite large disconnect between the talent and HR teams who use the HR tech and then the hiring teams who normally don't use it at all. There's this weird thing where they they palm off the candidate through an email or a MS Teams messenger. And then the hiring managers are often left running their own skunk work project, almost like I think it was maybe two years ago. We did research on how hiring managers are doing interviews, something like 20 percent of them took notes on paper. And then another half of them had some kind of version of Excel or spreadsheet or OneNote or whatever. A very small minority were actually using the proper HR tool systems, because they hadn't spread or infiltrated the whole company, they were just used in HR. But that's weird if most of the hiring decisions are actually outside of HR, like people actually do the interviews and the tests and what have you. So I feel like there's, maybe there's just some big gap there to digitize that whole hiring process consistently in large organizations. Have you seen something like that yourself?

ANDY: Yeah, and I think what you're saying there isn't necessarily specific to the hiring process. It comes back to culture, the culture of the business. You have to. enable people to one, feel comfortable using the tool. So are people not finding out why they're not using the tool? So are the hiring teams not using it because they're not comfortable, they haven't been trained, they don't see the value in using the tool or is it they don't know about it? Again, as a business, if you set that culture of where digital first, this is our process for hiring, this is where you fit into it and you train people to use it. It's the adoption of these systems that makes them successful, not necessarily. Just putting them in and expecting them to be used. And I think that's where a lot of businesses go wrong, certainly in large organizations, because you have an opportunity for something that we call cloud creep, where people will sign up to multiple different cloud services now because of how easy it is. And you run the risk of different departments running their process differently because they signed up to this system, somebody else is using another system and again, What does the overall business want to do? And that comes from strong direction at the top. This is how we hire. These are the systems we use. This is the process. And you've got to get that in place to actually make it successful. Because if you leave it to people to do their own thing, people typically do what they feel more comfortable in. And that's where you see people end up back in Excel and OneNote and emails.

TIM: And I guess, particularly for larger companies, the actual effort to say let's say take a bank in Australia, a hundred thousand people. They would just say, okay, we are now all using Workday or smart recruiters. Every single person in the entire company who gets involved in hiring, which is probably, I don't know, at least 10, 000 people. You're all going to have to be on the system. That is a massive IT project I would have thought to do that training, that onboarding, that setup of the system so that it's not a hodgepodge. It's almost I think, a meme in talent circles that you get a new talent director a few years and they'll, Oh, we need a new ATS and they'll create an ATS and then three years later, the next person will come and do the same thing. Why do these projects fail? Do you think? Is it that lack of adoption, that lack of forethought? What is the real gap?

ANDY: Sometimes trying to bite off a bit too much in one go. I think rolling it out to the whole business in one. Process or timescale can be a little bit challenging. You're being a little bit optimistic. I think you've got to start with a, an area that will champion it internally. So you find a, some, an area of the business that really is an advocate for this and can use it and see the benefits. And I think once people see success in one area of the business, it's easier then to get other people on the journey. I think agile is a word that's thrown around quite a lot. In a lot of technical projects and in all aspects of our life, and yeah, it is still much more effective to break things into smaller more iterative processes to roll things out than it is to try and do it in one big go. I think that's set up to fail. So again, if you can demonstrate where it's added value to another team within your business, and you've got champions that are happy to go and train people up and show them why it should be used. I think you're going to get better adoption elsewhere, but yeah, I'd definitely say that. Lack of adoption is the biggest blocker to successful use of any system, really.

TIM: Yeah, that's, outside of talent or HR that's any, anything, same scenario I'm sure I had a prior company I'd worked at where the equivalent mean was the same thing, but in marketing with a CRM that inevitably someone was going to come in and implement Salesforce, and then two years later, someone else is going to come in and say, Salesforce is shit. I'm going to implement X. And you go around this endless circle of ridiculousness where the data's always crap, and you just never get out of this cycle.

ANDY: But again, if you're moving away to a different system, it comes back to the business challenging why is the current system not fit for purpose? What are the advantages? Of the new one that are going to address your perceived challenges with the original one and having that process. Whereas I said, unfortunately you've got this situation there where it's so easy to sign up for another service on a monthly subscription with an email address. The barrier to entry is a lot lower than it was historically when you had to go and shift these systems around. And I think that's where they, again, as a business, you need to be a bit more joined up and say what is the right tool for us? And Okay. Have a very good. process in place for questioning why to move to different, but you're completely right. Someone new comes in, they've had a good experience, maybe in the hiring process with, where they've been previously, people always fall back to what they're familiar or comfortable with. And so they want that new system in, but does that actually work in the business that you're in at the moment? Just because you've had a great experience with one tool in a different business doesn't necessarily mean it's going to translate into your new business just because of that previous good experience.

TIM: changing topics a little bit. Now, it'd be great to have a discussion about AI in hiring. I'd love to know, have you started to dabble with it in any part of your hiring process? Have you started to see candidates use it as part of their application process?

ANDY: Yeah, it's something that again, personal opinion on AI was, I was a bit of a skeptic recently or until recently. Just because I thought it was a fantastic thing that people are always looking at, it's something in the future. It's coming down the line. The use cases weren't necessarily that compelling, but I think recently it's shown I've certainly in my own role. I've certainly seen that there's a place for it and it's a lot nearer to having a real impact on a regular basis than maybe I've probably given it credit for previously. I think in terms of CVs. I definitely think people are using tools now to summarize their experience on CVs and things like that. I think for me personally, my personal opinion is that I think these tools are real for someone that maybe might procrastinate on how to structure a document or where to start. I think it's a fantastic way of having that. That starter for 10 document structure, or giving you some ideas of how to word something that maybe you wouldn't have thought of yourself. I think people naturally on CV struggle to maybe present themselves or talk about themselves as positively as they'd like to maybe play themselves down a little bit. Whereas I think if you can have that starter for 10, here's a way of summarizing your experience in a different way than maybe you would have worded it yourself. I think that can only be a benefit. I think as long as you can back that up with the real, it still reflects who you are and it isn't a. An over polished version of you, I think you've still got to keep that authenticity in it to make sure that you're presenting yourself the way that is genuine and, gives you the best chance of getting that next stage interview.

TIM: That's a great insight you've provided there around overcoming the procrastination. You're right, because Now with a three second prompt, you could get something going and this is for any content, not just CVs, but that's a really interesting framing. I'm going to keep that under my hat for any time I'm procrastinating over anything, just at least the AI could get me step 0. 1 or something. Of course, it's not going to be the finished article, but at least it'll get the juices flowing a little bit.

ANDY: Yeah. And I think where it's a little bit. That's the right word. It's a little bit dangerous, but I think what you have to trade off is where people are using it to maybe portray something that isn't as genuine. I think if you're where AI and relevant tools are the most effective is where you've got the experience to be able to look at that starter for 10 and then tweak it. to the realism I think if you just purely rely on the output, you're always going to get found out. It's the same as anything, straight back to copying someone's homework at school. It's the same thing. If you don't have the knowledge to back it up, you'll get found out eventually. So I think certainly for someone like myself that maybe in the past has got a little bit. Two into the detail where, I struggled to get started because I want everything that first paragraph or that first structure, that first version to be perfect. I think it's allowed me to, to at least get that past that hurdle and then add my experience to it to make it the more finished article at the end of it.

TIM: And so for you at the moment, then, the large language models are mainly about helping you be more efficient in domains where you're already an expert, because you're able to scrutinize the output, you can tell right from wrong, you can fix the hallucinations, as opposed to, oh, here's this field, it's like deviations away from what I know, I can now get a foothold in this completely foreign world, because I've got this AI, it's more about the first use case rather than the second. Okay.

ANDY: Definitely that. And I think the other bit is not just tweaking it for accuracy, based on my experience, but also tweaking it to reflect my tone of voice. I think, again, it comes back to the authenticity and the genuine elements of it. I think even if. If, a tool like we use Microsoft Copilot quite a lot, but I've also used ChatGPT, these kind of tools, even if it was, even if it was accurate, the content, if it doesn't read the way that I would naturally have written it myself, then I'll be sure to make sure it definitely reflects my personality and my tone of voice. Because I think Again, otherwise you just people that know you, or, I think it's easy then to switch off and think, oh, this has just been auto generated. And I think when I started to use these kinds of tools for this purpose, I almost made an apology for saying oh, okay, I've used this, I've used a tool to get to this point, but actually that's just made my. efficiency greater, it's allowed me to get to that point quicker. So I've stopped apologizing for it now because actually I'm using it in the right way rather than just relying on it purely to churn out some content for me.

TIM: Yeah, the CV use case for a chat GPT or other LLM is interesting because part of the battle for candidates at the moment is sticking out from the crowd. They're seeing these jobs on LinkedIn that have hundreds of applications, thousands sometimes in America. They're probably thinking, Oh my God, like I'm going to have to apply to way more roles than what I thought of. I was going to have to. And they're using, clearly, Chachapiti to write or augment their CV, but it's going to use that Chachapiti style tone, isn't it? Which means they're at a risk of just blending into the crowd, the mess of everyone else, rather than having that authentic voice that could cut through. So I wonder whether they're almost not helping themselves at the moment by over relying on it.

ANDY: I think you can still spot the chat GPT generated content. I look, I'm quite active on LinkedIn as personally, as well as a business, and I think I can still spot businesses that are using these kinds of tools, the way it's written that 'cause it, if you asked a tool like chat, GPT to write you a LinkedIn post, it has a structure that is very obviously being generated by chat GPT and that's where I might use that as a starting point, but I wouldn't dream of putting the actual content out there in that format because of how, how automated it does look. Whereas I see a lot of people that do rely on it. And I think at that point, that's where I think as someone that reviews CVs, I'd still be able to, I still believe myself and my team have got the experience to spot something that has been auto generated. And I think the, actually the way that you stand out from the crowd is your ability to blend your experience to what the role demands, not just a. a generic way of saying what skills you've got. If you, it's a bit like when you do an exam, you have to, the certain criteria that you're looking to answer in your answer to show that you've understood and addressed certain points. And I think that's where people can stand out because they're actually applying it to how their skills and experience are going to help you with your specific role requirements. And I don't think you can just rely on an AI tool to do that.

TIM: Yeah, if I ever see anything with the phrase, in the ever changing landscape dot, or the word realm, I don't know why ChatGPT is so obsessed with realm. It's like the most popular word, it thinks, in the English language now, apparently.

ANDY: Yeah, and again, you spot that in a mile off. Don't you really? It's so obvious. And again, you'll never be authenticity. These tools can't at the moment replace that genuine authenticity. So you've got to use them for what they are good at the moment. And then actually there are a lot of benefits to that.

TIM: So we've mentioned the candidates using this sometimes to craft a CV or augment it or improve it in some way. What I also understand is that there's some tools out there that would allow you to apply en masse to different roles. Where it could on the fly tweak your CV to hit the job description in principle, but also fill in the application form and do all of that jazz. I wonder whether this is going to cause some problems, which is if the marginal cost to a candidate of applying for another job is pretty much zero. They may as well chance their arm and go I could apply to a thousand, even if 900 of them are irrelevant. I don't really care, and it's going to create this almost spam effect. Where now companies are going to have to go what am I going to do with these thousand applicants? There might be 10 that are good, but they're buried among the sea of this Chachapiti written crap. How are we going to get out of this mess? Do you think?

ANDY: I don't think you can, it's no different to when bots started to reply to certain things, filled forms out on websites years ago, and you had to introduce it as the thing we've all seen before, click the photos that contain the fire hydrant or whatever it's the, how do you have a check? It's the same with there'll be AI tools that can detect. AI written content in time. So again, I'd probably look to technology to help identify and score people's CVs or their applications based on almost an authenticity scoring and see if you believe it's, to what extent it's been generated by AI and try and filter that out. Because again, it comes back to using digital transformation principles of, can I use technology to actually improve my. Process and actually reduce manual efforts. Otherwise you're going to have to go through each of those applications manually and work out what you believe is is something that's been auto generated. So again, you'd expect in time ways of almost screening content to say, look, we scoring it with a, a likeliness of how auto generated that's been. So that's how I would hope that the solutions evolve is that there's almost like an endorsement. score against a, a piece of content to say, look, how original was this, or, to what extent did it rely on AI.

TIM: And is that the crux of the problem? Is it that? So let's say used AI in a good way, where it's like you had a conversation with Chachapiti for half an hour. It asked you all these questions about your career. It then Succinctly summarized and put everything it knows about you in a CV matched it to a job description, didn't hallucinate, but ultimately the CV is still written with Chachapiti. Is that a problem for you or is that a good use of AI?

ANDY: For me, it's a good use because it isn't generic content. If it's matched it to the, if it's taken your experience and it's matched it to the actual requirements of the role and it's helped them. produce something that's more compelling to me. Cause again, you can waste time in lots of ways. Can't you again, having something that's auto generated and isn't really genuine is just as bad as someone sending in a, a CV that doesn't match the role at all. So you have to find a happy medium, I think. And I think if that can help the candidates identify opportunities for themselves and. put themselves across better than I think that's a positive use of the technology. As long as it's genuine, as long as it's, it does match your experience, does match these roles. LinkedIn now can, look at your profile and when you see jobs advertised on there, it'll tell you what skills it believes that, your current experience as you've listed it. Maps into those roles. So that's already happening. And I think that's a positive use. Again, all you're looking for is that genuine, am I the right person for this role? Or am I just like you said, I think you used the phrase, am I chancing it? And that's what you want to try and do. Cause that just wastes everybody's time. Whether you finally get through the cost of hiring the wrong person is such a massive impact to any business, but. You just want people to be a bit more realistic with where they're at the moment and what support they need and be a bit more honest with themselves as to how. How how relevant the role is to them.

TIM: Yeah what I suspect will happen is that in time, maybe only six to 12 months, that companies will start using, as you say, some kind of technology. On their end to screen CVs, to come up with some kind of matching score. Because it's seems inevitable, like they're dealing with an application volumes of hundreds of thousands, like they literally can't do it manually. So they have to do something. But another maybe angle to look at is. the kind of inbound versus outbound. So at the moment, we're talking about jobs boards, which are an open system. Anyone can apply, which is actually pretty good. The fact that the jobs are available and anyone can, in theory, get their CV in front of the hiring manager. I feel like that's the way it should be. But maybe some perverse consequence in the short run will be that suddenly more jobs will just be for referrals, for the network, for behind closed doors. In which case, that seems a little bit less fair because If you're a candidate with a weak network or you're a recent migrant, doesn't know anyone in the country and suddenly you seem to be at a disadvantage, but I feel like that's going to be a consequence of the jobs boards just being smashed by spam in the short run. Can you see that happening?

ANDY: Yeah. As a business ourselves, we've done very well over the years, but through referral, I think there's something very comforting about referral because you've got somebody either that you've worked with before or someone that you trust that's worked with before that can endorse and recommend them, the risk with that is that then that's where kind of bias creeps in. And I think sometimes you can be a little bit closed off. How does anyone get an opportunity if it's always referral? I started my career in early on in my career, I started working for a national health service. I went for two jobs in the same week at two different organizations that actually were hosted in the same building. One organization rejected me because I didn't have a healthcare experience. And the other organization took me on. A big part of that was because I didn't have healthcare experience. They were looking for someone to think outside the box and bring a different way of thinking to the organization. So two very different ways of recruiting there. If it had just been on the experience, that's effectively almost like a referral because you've worked in this industry before, then, they've effectively missed out on somebody because they didn't give them that opportunity. How do you get opportunity if you're not. It's all presented with that. So I think while referral has its place, I think. I wouldn't want to just only ever go off referral. I think if there was a way of almost again, scoring applications on a referral, obviously it gives you almost like a waiting towards having a better score because it's endorsed by somebody else. But I think as our business has grown, some of the ideas that have flown into the business because of people working in a different way has actually been to our benefit. And so I wouldn't want to limit that by being too restrictive in the pool of people that we're looking at.

TIM: Cause the other thing with referrals is it rarely scales. I think beyond a certain point, like maybe the first five, 10, people, but. It's not like you can scale to 10, 000 people just on referrals, or I don't think any company's successfully done that in the past. So at some point you're gonna have to dip into the wider market, and use jobs boards or some other method.

ANDY: Yeah. And I think. Yeah, you look at the people coming out of universities or people starting in the world of work, who's referring them because they haven't got the experience to be able to fall back on. So I think, we've all started work somewhere and I think how would we have reacted if you weren't given that chance to learn and have an opportunity. Yeah, I think you can't get too prescriptive about what you're looking for because otherwise you only ever end up recruiting the same kind of person all the time. And that just doesn't lend itself to a successful business.

TIM: What about yourself? If you were suddenly looking for a role in a couple of months time, what would be your strategy? Would you be applying to jobs through jobs boards? Would you be trying to leverage your network? How would you go about it?

ANDY: probably a bit of everything. I think there isn't a hard and fast way of doing that. I think, I've been working, I think next year will be my 25th year in work. So I've built up quite a strong network in that time. I think. You'd have to think very strongly. I think for me, the experience has told me now it's rather than looking for a job that you like the sound of, you look at your own experience and you try and work out where you could add value to that organization because I think everybody that's hiring people is looking for that person to come in and add value to their business, they're not just looking to take it. people on for the sake of adding numbers. So I think I'd be keen to look and understand, where I believe my experience has led me and what kind of roles would benefit from my experience now. So I think that would be a mixture of looking at referrals, whether that's people I've worked with, clients I've worked with or networks that I've built up, obviously quite involved in the data community. You meet different people from all sorts of different opportunities. And I think that's where. I'll be focusing my attention. Don't just go for one type of or one part of one part of the process. I think you've got to try multiple different channels to find the right role and give yourself the best opportunity to find that role that suits you.

TIM: And yeah, I guess the more options you have, the more leverage you have. Like the difference that plays when you get to that pointy end of recruitment is staggering. Like having run a recruitment business in the past, if you get a candidate to the end and they've got another offer on the table or two offers, it just changes the equation so quickly. So if you can get something in your hand through various channels, then even if ultimately you don't go for that one, it gives you so much more power, I think, and leverage in the process.

ANDY: Yeah, I think obviously it's different, isn't it? I think if you're looking for work because you're out of work, you're obviously going to have a very different approach to someone that's maybe in, in work looking for a different role. The pressures of finding work will dictate what kind of strategy you take to find the right job, whether it's an immediate need or whether you can be a bit more selective. So I think that's really important. But I just think. You've got to find something that is effectively going to make the best use of your skills because when you're in front of the hiring managers and the people that you'll be working with I think it's a lot easier then to get across the value that you're going to bring to that role rather than just flooding it for I think it's very difficult when you Get in front of somebody if you've just done, as we said earlier, and, spammed your way into lots of different applications and you've stood in front of somebody, I think it's just very difficult to come across in that interview. Even if you get to the actual face to face interview, it's difficult to come across and say that, this is the right role for you when actually you've got 10 other interviews this week at different places because you've almost got to buy into the business and what they're about and why you, we ask the question all the time, why do you want to come work for Circle? And I've had a real. Mix of answers to that question. Some, as someone said to me, look, it looked like more money. And again, appreciate the honesty, but. At that point I'm thinking if somebody offers you more money later on, where's the loyalty to us as a business? So you've set your stall out now as to what, and again, you'd rather have the honesty and if that's the case. But I think sometimes I'm astounded by how little people research into you as a business when they're actually about to have a face to face interview. They don't really know what they're joining. So at that point, that's a bit of a red flag for me personally.

TIM: Yeah. And it's funny thinking about even our conversation now, how much of the basics can get you so far. You know what I mean? So as a candidate preparing for a role, yeah. Who's the company? Why do you want this job? It's surely the most famous and common interview question in the entire world. Do you think you would prep that one on your sort of 80, 20 rule? And so yeah, that's staggering that with all this complexity, you would miss something as simple as that.

ANDY: you talk about culture fit. It works both ways. Are you right for us? But also, are we right for you? I think the idea that an interview is a one way process just doesn't sit right with me. It's about as much of you finding out if you're the right person for us. Because even if we think you're, a great candidate to take on for Circle, if you aren't sure, or you get there and you, yeah, we had a situation in the past where we've, one of my managing director's key questions at the end is, we offer you the job tomorrow, would you take it? And, we've had people answer it with a kind of a 60, 40, maybe, yeah, that's the situation. I think you want people to be going into it for the right reasons. People will always have to go and consider things and what works best for them. But I think if there's hesitancy from day one, there's a bit of a challenge there in terms of how successful it's going to be on both sides. If it doesn't work for the candidates, ultimately it won't work for us either. Cause we'll invest the time to get you trained up and get you to that good place for us. But we want it to be a good culture fit on both sides.

TIM: By that token, I have to say I'm sometimes surprised when I've interviewed candidates and they've been reluctant to ask any questions at all. And so the last time I was interviewing people, I'd have a structure where I'd start the interview by saying is there anything you want to kick off with anything you want to ask now? And I feel like some of them were caught off guard and then maybe weren't ready. So they missed that opportunity, but I always did it at the end again, after we've then had an interview. But I was struck by how many don't ask anything or they're you can tell there's, Oh shit. I have to ask a question. I better think of some random question to ask as opposed to no, you're about to, this is a change in your life to get this job. This is a, you spend more of your time at work than you do with your friends and family. Like surely you want to know something. Do you want to know anything about me? Like I'm the crazy person running the company, you can ask me anything you like anything and they still don't often have much to ask. Is

ANDY: Yeah, I think so, because I think it shows it shows a engagement in the conversation. It shows a commitment to their own happiness, if you're like you say, you're about to make a commitment to us for the, how you are going to hopefully be a long term employee for us, or it's the right next step for you. There's no way we could have put everything across in a. Application or, the job spec, there's no way we could have answered everything. I think, even when you have basic interview training, when you're at school, they say that you should at least go with a couple of questions, even if they're, but you want them to show that there's some depth to it and that they've actually taken a bit of time to consider how this might work for them. And I think anybody that has done that would naturally have some questions. I know people get nervous and maybe forget to ask things. And we are, we always say, look, if you've got any follow on questions that you think of afterwards, please. Yeah, get in touch. But I think there's an element of preparation. People that don't even know what we do. I think I've had people that have effectively been pre screened get to a face to face interview or initial teams meeting as we do it just to have an initial kind of way of meeting the candidates. But if you don't even know what we do, that's a, straight off, that's a red flag because how can you then know that you're going to help contribute to that if you don't know what that is.

TIM: Yeah, exactly. One person I was speaking to recently made like they do a bit of career coaching with data people and they said to them, to their clients, they said, Hey, like once you get to the office stage, try to get an extra, 15 minutes with the hiring manager just to dive into every other question that you have to really make sure it's the right role for you. So if you had a candidate at that stage and Hey Andy, I'd love to just grab another. 15, 30 minutes. If you have time so I can run through some more thoughts, how would you feel about that? Would you be open to that?

ANDY: Fantastic. Yeah, I think if again, it shows a willingness, it shows a commitment to thoroughness. Is this the right thing for you? And also the people that work there will tell you the most about the fact that people are still there shows that there's something that you can learn a lot from people like that, I think and, you'd happily give up the time to make someone as comfortable with it because again, what's the, what's 30 minutes compared to the cost of taking somebody on for a few months, putting your time and your finances into investing in them for them to then walk away. I think. So the more detail, the more someone shows a willingness to understand better and want to understand us as a business and the role itself, I think, yeah, you'd always give that time. And I think straight away, that's a kind of a tick in the box that somebody is keen and is probably a good fit for you in terms of how they operate.

TIM: I feel like there's also something to be said for almost like the depth of questions that maybe both sides ask actually. And this is why I feel like personally, if as early on in the process as possible, both the company and the candidate could. Share as much information as possible. Be as transparent as possible. It's almost like you can skip past the superficial bullshit questions. Let's just get down to what exactly do you want me to do? What does success look like? Here's exactly how I approach this. I feel like the sooner you can get down to that depth of conversation, the more effective the hiring process surely would be.

ANDY: Yeah, because it can be a little bit of a dance to start with, can't it? You're trying to demonstrate that, here's the things I've done and we're trying to tell you what a great business it is. But like you say, people have different experiences of certain companies and of different people. You've got to find, are you the right, are you the right mix and match at that point? I always say, look, the As difficult as it might be, I'd rather people be completely transparent about where they're at, whether that's strengths, weaknesses, way you feel you want to get to, what are your aspirations? What support do you need to get there? Because then you can actually do a proper plan for that. You can actually make it happen. I think in our worlds in particular the increasing kind of low code technologies And the marketing behind that as well. It's really simple. You can get this stuff done. You don't need development skills. If you're just in a normal kind of non technical role, you can actually build some pretty clever stuff now, it looks really good. And unfortunately what that's. Tends to what I've experienced is that's then given people a bit of a full sense of capability. So where we've recruited for technical roles, because maybe they've dealt with aspects of that and not necessarily had the background. They've gone for quite senior, we've seen people apply for quite senior roles that haven't necessarily got the experience to, to back that up. And even though their CV might say because that's their perception, it's a genuine perception of where they're at. But yeah, we've seen that it's brought out this new type of person, but that's new to the certain aspects of it, but we haven't got the depth to fall back onto. And I think that doesn't always come across in how they interview. And if that isn't something they understand, then again, that's not necessarily their fault, but I think again, understanding what you are and what you aren't and how, but what you'd like to be and how you believe that role and us as a business can help you get there and what the benefits are, then I think that's going to have a much more. Positive conversation and outcome than someone that's going to be trying to almost sugarcoat what they've done and make it look a little bit more comprehensive.

TIM: Yeah, I have to say, pet peeve of mine, if I ask someone a question and I feel like they're evasive, not really answering it, deflecting, trying to hide something, I just find that just painfully, instantly annoying.

ANDY: Yeah.

TIM: And I'd rather they just come and go, I don't know X or I don't know Y. Great, good. That's a quick answer and a good answer. There's nothing wrong with saying I don't know.

ANDY: Yeah, people don't know everything, you never will do, people have always, for me as well, it's that mindset of continuous learning as well, accepting what you don't know, but having a plan to want to get there is far more important than, because you only get found out if you try and pretend you know something and it's too far for you, I think you're not helping anybody, you're certainly not helping yourself, but you're also wasting our time as well, which that's not going to end well, is it? It's not a great, it's not a great way to, to start that. new role if you're already up against it.

TIM: And it's almost. Worse because if you are presenting yourself as knowing something and the person finds that you don't, and you still defend it, then oh, you are uncoachable as well. It's not even that you don't, it's not that you know nothing, it's, no, it'll be better if you know you nothing and you said you know nothing. 'cause at least then you can grow. But you're in a position where now what am I meant to do? ,

ANDY: Yeah, and it's a particular red flag for us as a business because we're a consultancy. There's two aspects to that. One, I think customers expect from a consultancy, a level of quality. You're going with an external provider because you want to accelerate your project. You're leaning on their expertise and their experience. And I think sometimes feel people feel pressured by that to, to know the answer to everything. But in the same way we've just said. It's about transparency and open, openness. If you don't know the answer, you don't know. But have you got the commitment to go and find out the answer versus I just don't know what the answer is. And I think in our world, one of our key one of the key things that we have to do in any new customer engagement, we have to learn their business. We've got the technical expertise. When we partner with you, we're coming to learn how your business operates. So we can marry up. the technology to, to help you hit your business goals. So one of those things is being quite prepared to walk into those initial meetings where you're asking questions about how their business operates and you have to be prepared to not know answers or ask perceived, silly questions because you need to make sure you come out of that meeting and you understand what that business is trying to do. And if you try and pretend you know things. It's going to come out in what you propose to that client later on or how you operate with them. You're going to have to go back and ask that question again, or you're going to get things wrong. So I think being prepared to, to say you don't know something is a key skill for not just the hiring process, but how you actually, operating. You never learn, do you, if you don't accept what you don't know.

TIM: Speaking of hiring for consultants specifically, so anything that's a little bit different, anything different that you would look for in a consultant that you wouldn't look for in another data professional and consequently any different steps in the hiring process or any different ways that you hire to look for that slightly different skill set.

ANDY: Yeah. And I think it is a different skillset. Clearly, I think most people become consultants because they've got that. Technical expertise in whatever their area is. It doesn't really matter what you're consulting in. I think you've got into it because you've done the work. That's what's given you that baseline of knowledge and experience. I think where a consultant changes is that you need to understand how you can apply it to your clients. I think one of the biggest things is the skills to be able to explain technical concepts in a non technical manner to a non technical audience. Because I think as technical people, sometimes we're guilty of over complicating things or wanting things to sound really not complicated, but people to almost understand what's involved with this and how clever it is sometimes. And I think straight away, if you've just lose the audience, people don't care. I think people want to know how is this going to help me do my job? Not necessarily, why is it so clever? Some people do, but I think the majority of times it's about, can I build a norm? technical relationship with our client stakeholders with the right blend of soft skills. Can I present concepts to people? Am I comfortable? Running a workshop, for example, or standing in front of talking in front of the room and presenting your ideas to people and, am I open enough to have a two way conversation and understand that clients needs to then turn that into a technical solution? Clearly, you need a blend of people, you need people with the deep technical expertise, but I think if you're going to be a successful consultant long term, then. Soft skills are just as important as the technical skills, because you'd expect that you've got to that level as a consultant because you've already had the technical experience to fall back on, but this is now, how can I take that out to people I don't know or a business I've never, a sector I've never worked in and can I apply that to this scenario? And that's the sort of thing we look for is very much about the business relationship as well as the technical one.

TIM: And so as part of what you're looking for in these consultants, I'm guessing part of it is adaptability if they're going into different consultancies, different technical environments, granted, if you're a Microsoft provider, maybe there's some consistency there, but still, whatever the current environment is of that company, I guess you're gonna have to have that mindset to be able to shift and adapt and and change, which I guess also is the same thing now with AI, given how quickly that's changing the landscape. Okay. Is that's really adaptability, willingness to change and learn must be a critical trait.

ANDY: Yeah. The technology landscape, as well as AI, just in the. In the data analytics space that I work in, the tool sets evolve all the time on a monthly basis. You're having new fit, you have to stay on top of not just the features, but where the features will have the value. That's the thing. It isn't just a case of, Oh, this is a really new cool thing you can do. Yeah. But if there's no business need for it, no one's going to need to use it. So you're all, you're always evaluating when something new evolves similarly, like we said before, with the use of AI to generate content, it's finding what it's good for and what it's not good for. I think, yeah, we go into, we, yeah, we do go into clients that aren't a Microsoft house. And maybe they're on AWS, maybe they're on Google, but the principles of what we're recommending still apply. We've done consulting engagements for people where we've helped them with the strategy. Maybe it's a, they've got people in house to actually, maybe it's a Google house and they've got people in house to actually do the work, but maybe haven't been given the overall architecture or strategic. Leadership that they're after. And again, the principles of good data management and analytics are fairly consistent across any technical platform. So it doesn't stop us providing again, our experience to help them get to where they need to get to. And I think that skillset of being flexible, being adaptable, because again, You need to be prepared to learn something new potentially, but also spot where you've done something similar. So as an example, I was in a, a new customer, potentially a conversation yesterday, and it's primarily a sales organization, the same as a lot of our clients are, there's a lot of consistency in terms of whether you're measuring sales, you're invoicing your finances, you're manufacturing, there's so many. Crossovers between sectors, even though they believe that they're unique or their challenges are unique or how they operate are unique actually successful businesses is run on, you know a handful of really key concepts and being able to learn something new about the nuances of that client, but also Understand where you've done something similar for another client and bring that new perspective to the client. That's all part of, the consultant toolkit really where that's where you add the value because you can show them the black spots that maybe they weren't that they hadn't identified or seen themselves.

TIM: You've given me a newfound appreciation for consulting. Maybe that's a industry I'll get into one day. Andy, one final question for you is if you could ask our next guest one question, what question would that be?

ANDY: I think for me personally moving forward, I'd like to understand how they perceive that businesses can blend. AI data, human experience to influence the hiring process, because I don't think any of those things on their own are enough, but how does that guest that you have see the benefits and the opportunity that blending the three together will give you a much more rounded hiring experience and is that possible and how do they see that evolving as the, as all these different approaches continue to.

TIM: I will level that question at our next guest, and I'm interested to see what they'll come up with Andy. It's been a great conversation today. I've really enjoyed it. I'm sure our audience have as well. Thank you so much for joining us.

ANDY: Thank you for your time. I really enjoyed it too. And yeah, good to chat.