Episode 96

Beth Welcomme on The Role of Personality and Potential in Data Hiring

TIM: We are live on the Objective Hiring Show with Beth. Beth, thank you so much for joining us.

BETH: Thank you very much for having me.

TIM: It's our pleasure with your beaming smile to kick off the show. That's a great start. I was wondering if you could start by giving us just like a brief introduction about yourself and what you're currently doing, just so our audience can learn a little bit about you.

BETH: Yeah, of course. So my name's Beth. I'm the head of data and intelligence at Easyfairs UK & Global, and we run events. So conferences and exhibitions are mainly in Europe, but all over the world. So I work with our central support team that supports all of the different events that we work with, running the data and the analytics side.

TIM: Nice stuff and events are good fun. Must be an interesting business to be a part of.

BETH: I have to admit, I wasn't expecting to come into events, but I fell in love with it, and I've been in events for 10 years now, and I can't really imagine doing anything else, even though I love the data side.

TIM: One thing we were chatting about when we met about a month or so ago was your kind of hiring philosophy. of trying to hire people based on potential. And I think it was a really interesting take you had on this. And I'd love to just pick your brain on this topic. Like, why have you taken this approach? How has it worked in the past? What are some challenges with the approach?

BETH: I think for me, it started personal. I didn't mean to come into data. It wasn't my goal. I didn't. start out or go to university going, I'm going to be a data person. I naturally found my way there doing lots of different things. And I ended up working with a lot of our event data for my first event company and going, This is, I enjoy this. This is good. It's different. I can make a difference with this. And. So from that journey, I then want to make sure others get the chance. That's not to say I won't hire someone that has said, I want to do data. This is what I'm focused on. I want to do analytics, but I think everyone's got that potential. And if they've got the drive, the curiosity, and they want to try, I'm willing to take a bit of a punt sometimes, depending on who the person is.

TIM: And you say, depending on who the person is. So Is there a sense of some kind of transferable skills or some mindset that you're looking for?

BETH: Yes. So very much. I will often hire more for their personality and how they approach problems rather than their current skill set. So I'm looking for someone who's usually curious, who wants to learn, who's going to try something and not be afraid to fail, who's willing to ask questions. But it's also not going to hide behind a screen. So they need to be able to work with the event teams. A lot of people who are so naturally inclined to go into data tend to hide. And it was my first team that very much hid behind their screens. And while you can get statistics out of that, you miss the understanding of what they mean. You don't get the context, and you don't actually see how they fit into a wider business. So you can actually get a lot more out of that interaction with people than just looking at numbers. So I'm looking for that. As well as the ability to learn.

TIM: It's so interesting if I think about the way analytics is formally taught in degrees and boot camps. I feel like various things you just mentioned as being really essential are probably not taught or mentioned at all. And you'd have this perception if you came into it that you are just your job is to chop Python code or write SQL, create a tableau vis and then job done. But it's not like that at all, is it?

BETH: And don't be wrong. You can get some very good data from people; that's what their focus is, and that's what their aim is. But from being able to actually see how it fits into a business and how to actually help with analytics and push things forward, you're missing those key skills. If you are just going to look at code, you can do your job. But it will make it much more difficult to progress because you don't know where to try and make things better.

TIM: Is there almost then a mindset shift that might need to occur if you probably shouldn't be thinking of the output of your job as like code written or dashboards created or reports written or whatever? It's going to be something closer to a tangible business metric.

BETH: Tangible business metrics, but storytelling is the main thing. And I know people talk about storytelling and data all the time, and I know it gets very wishy-washy. But the basis of that is being able to translate numbers to mean something to a person. And if you don't know who that person is, what their role is, and what they want out of their role or their business, you can't do that translation. You don't understand what it means, what's important to them, or what actually makes the difference to them. It's not always about revenue. Revenue is certainly a part of it, but that's not always the key metric that we should be looking at.

TIM: And so there's an element of psychology, almost an element of having empathy for your audience and really knowing who they are and what motivates them, what motivates you. What KPIs do they have that might not necessarily be the business ones as well?

BETH: Definitely. You've just hit the nail on the head of what motivates them. So that is what you need to get out of your audience in order to present anything in the right way. And that goes from whether you are an entry-level data person to someone who's a head of data or a marketing director, whatever level you are, and you're dealing with it. You have to know what motivates someone in order to give them what they want and in order to persuade them to work with you. So I think that's one of the key skills and data that, yeah, it's not generally taught at university, but there are other places in life that you can learn.

TIM: And how do you then set up your hiring process to try to evaluate some of these things?

BETH: So for me, we don't narrow it too much at the start. It's making sure that we are open to lots of different possibilities. Our normal hiring process, in some ways, we're fairly lucky. We don't get hundreds of applications, so we don't have to worry about going through hundreds. We usually get in the range of 30 to 50, which means it's a lot more manageable for an actual person to look at, so we don't currently have what we have. Oh, sorry. Online tools that collect CVs and hiring letters, things like that. But they don't; there's no AI process involved. There isn't anything that automatically whittles them down. So we do have a hiring manager that will look through those, but when I go through with her what my pro, my priorities are on what I want from someone, I'm not saying I want someone that's got a degree in X, Y, Z, I am more I'm more likely to say, okay. I'm open to someone that's got a degree, but I'm also open to anyone that's worked in an office for a year. So that range of experience, you don't have to get it just from a degree. You can get it from on-the-job experience, et cetera. So I think the first step is not narrowing your funnel too much at the start and being open to possibility. cut

TIM: You don't necessarily have quite tight criteria initially; does that then mean the pool of candidates you filter through is just naturally more diverse? Like, it's a wider breadth of different

BETH: Exactly. Because we're not putting in that job advert, you have to have a degree; it automatically widens your optimal possibilities. There are more people who are more likely to apply, and you can get people with a better mindset. And part of our job is as well as we are based on location. So we have to be in the office at least three days a week. So I'm not looking for people that are purely for remote. I'm looking for people that come into the office. For somewhere, we are based in London, and for a place in London, it's actually a lot longer to get to than you think. So if you've got someone that's going to be two, three hours away, even though they say in London, we're more likely to narrow down on geographical criteria than we are on, okay, they haven't been to university, they're coming out of this list. We also asked them to talk about their experience. So we asked for them to say, Okay, how does this fit into the data? We want part of our job spec to say we are looking for someone with curiosity, with drive, someone who's going to be happy and able to work in a fast-moving environment. So we are looking for those sorts of examples in the cover letter.

TIM: And would these typically be reasonably like junior analyst roles that you'd be

BETH: Yes. Yes. So usually we are going for a more junior role. It's something that has pros and cons, but we've got a fairly small team. So there are six of us, and it means that we have junior roles, and naturally, they then progress. And as they progress, they either stay with the company and grow in those roles, or they leave and go on to find new places. And you know what I've been really proud of. people in my team for doing both things. I'm never going to stop someone and hold them back. If they find something that's bigger, better, or want to move on, that's not a problem. But it's then another opportunity to find someone who's new and then train them and bring them into the world of data.

TIM: Yeah, I think that's a good mindset to have. I'm sure not every hiring manager would have that because it would be easy to be almost protective or think, Oh, I've invested all this time in this person, and now they're leaving me. I guess some people might Put it that way.

BETH: There is, but I think that's how we network and how we grow. No one is ever going to—very few people stay in the same job for their entire life. And especially with the job market at the moment, from what I've seen, most people change jobs every two years or less. There are very few people in the industry that I'm in and the people that I know. Stay in that job for a longer time. I'm one of the ones that bucks the trend; I've been in this job for almost six years now. So not everything follows the rule, but for a lot of people, I think there is quite a high churn rate at the moment in just generally in the job. market.

TIM: And I would have thought, especially so the more junior end where it's a bit More natural that you would chop and change a bit more frequently; at least in my experience, it was a fairly easy way to get better jobs.

BETH: But that doesn't mean that's always the case, though. So from my, so I said there are six of us on my team at the moment. From my team, one has been there since the same time when I was hired. So she's been there six years as well. And another has been here, been with us, coming up on three years. So it's not necessarily that there is a constant change. Sometimes it just takes time to find the right person. Yeah, it's up to people what that person wants. Do they want somewhere stable that they can learn and they can grow? Or do they just want to get as much money as quickly as possible? It's, I think, you'll always find there are different candidates that want different things.

TIM: Yeah, it's also maybe a stage of life thing, like what Motivation when you're 25 is probably different when you're 35 on average.

BETH: Very much and different expectations as well.

TIM: It's a good shot to bring up the geography thing; maybe it's a more relevant filtering factor than a degree, because, yeah. Yeah, a similar kind of vibe. Sydney and London are similar in that sense that it's just so geographically dispersed and the traffic is so terrible, and our public transport, I guarantee, is worse than London. So if you live in Manly and your job's in Sutherland, which is in the south, you might say, Oh yeah, I'll just do the commute. I'll just get on three freeways and three tolls every day, one and a half hours each way. But you won't; after a month you will. Be willing, losing the will to live, I think.

BETH: Yeah, there's one on our team who travels about an hour and a half each way each day. So that's the longer end of travel, but anything more than that, you're spending so much time at work anyway. That you're not going to end up enjoying your job and you will end up resenting it can almost guarantee it.

TIM: I feel like it's the sort of thing that, yeah, if a junior candidate told me, Oh, it's fine. I'll just do the four-hour commute every day. I'd be less likely to take their word for it than if someone who'd been doing it for years, similar to fully remote, actually. If you've done fully remote for five years successfully, I go, Yeah, okay. They can do it. If they've never. done remote in their lives. Yeah, it's fine. I'll just work at 3am on the other side of the world for your business in Australia. Yeah, don't. I don't think you will.

BETH: I think touching on remote working, I think it's something that we need. A lot of trust has become much more common since COVID. COVID was the absolute impact on it. But we do it gradually. So for their first month, we train in-house. So it's fully in the office. And that means that I'm fully in the office as well. So they're not just left alone in the office. There's always someone in there with them. If I can't make it, I'll make sure one of the team can, so that they've, we're building that teamwork as well. It's not just you; you're on your own. And then after their first month, they can start working from home one day a week. And then after the past probation, which is three months, then they can start working from home two days a week. So it builds up to it, and it helps give that structure and develop the teamwork alongside it.

TIM: Yeah, it's, and I say this as someone who's been working remotely for six years, it's very hard to replicate an in-person meeting. No matter how much technology you have, there's always just something that's just slightly missing. And it's just always easier to have them there and just grab them for a coffee or have lunch. Even just, yeah, the banter and the whatnot are as valuable as the work stuff.

BETH: Just generally training and just showing three different systems. And, oh, I've just got an odd question. That's much easier to ask over a desk than it is to go, Can I just call you on Teams to go through this question and have that every five minutes? It's much better; you can get a much better rapport in person.

TIM: Yeah, It just breaks down that barrier. Yeah, I think, yeah, for most people, even the only thing I was thinking of was maybe you'd get, like, extreme introverts who would probably rather send you a Slack message than speak to you face to face. But it sounds like in your evaluation criteria, you're looking for people who want to go out and speak to the business anyway. Yes. I can't imagine you're hiring them.

BETH: It doesn't mean that I don't want introverts. If I look at Maya's big scale as well, I actually go very far on the introverted side, but it's something that I have learned to deal with as I've progressed through work: you can't shut yourself away and hide behind a screen. It doesn't matter if you're introverted or extroverted; yes, that's how you draw your energy, but you still need to be able to deal with people. If you actually want to progress and not even just progress, but be able to be good at your job and be able to explain what you do and why you're doing it. You have to be able to talk to people. No one is going to look at a set of data and go, Oh, I'm going to do anything you say. You have to be able to take them through what that data means and why they need to understand it. What's, why is it important? A number on a board means nothing.

TIM: And for these, if I just think back to when I was starting in analytics. The skills you're talking about, I feel like, are more difficult than the technical bits, like almost higher value add to have that level of communication, empathy, understanding of motivation, communicating data, and storytelling. How often do the candidates who are junior that you're hiring have that? Is it just that you can see the glimpse of what they could

BETH: Yeah, it's potential. I'm not expecting it to be fully fledged. Not at all, especially for a junior candidate. Technical skills I can teach. And do you know what YouTube can teach? There are so many different videos on Excel, even coding analytics and SQL. There are so many online things that people can learn, and yeah, we've got a full team; they will teach each other generally as well. I'm not worried about them learning the technical side. Yes, I want some basics. So some, and I want them to be honest about what they know. That's a big no for me with hiring. Is anyone trying to say they can do something that they can't? I'd rather they just flat out say, No, I don't know how to do it. But that being able to interact with people doesn't come naturally to everyone. And that's something that they have to be able to work with a team and with other people. So one of the things that I'll do is, when I have people here for an interview, they say our interview process is we have an online interview to start off with, just with our hiring manager. So just so she can go over the basics. Then we have one face-to-face interview that is half a test on Excel and half face-to-face, like a traditional interview, so to speak. But as part of them, my team sits outside of two meeting rooms. So usually one of those rooms is free. And I will introduce the person to the team just as we go towards the meeting room where I've got the interview. And that, right from the beginning when you're bringing them into the office, you are watching how they interact. Don't get me wrong, I'm expecting them to be nervous they're in an interview, especially if they're junior, especially if they're new or low level or just came out of university. I'm expecting nervousness, but I am expecting them to at least say hello and interact. If someone shuts off and doesn't say anything, that's a big warning sign for me that they're not going to be able to cope with what I need from them in the role.

TIM: Yeah, and that's completely fair enough, because all you've got to go on in any hiring process is really the data that you have: the CV, a test score, and an interview score. I personally feel like this is one of the kind of core flaws of hiring in general, is you've got such a small sample size of data, you've got maybe four hours with the candidate tops, and that's a reasonably lengthy process. So you've got to extrapolate from that as best you can. But there must be, if I think back, so many candidates who just crumble in the hiring process. It's just too nerve-wracking to deal with so many people that don't know. They clam up; they just can't do it. But given enough time to warm up, probably we would have seen the best of them.

BETH: I mean, we try; there are always going to be cases where they're too nervous and it just goes wrong, and as much as I feel for someone, you can only base it on what that's all we can do. So I try and give them the most opportunity. I'm quite an open, friendly person. I will try and be welcoming. I try and give them that opportunity that they can relax a bit with me. I'm not one that's going to dress up in a suit, sit there very sternly, and go, Okay, let's go through this list of questions. That's not me. I'm a bit more open. I'm a bit more relaxed. And I hope that tries to make them more relaxed as well. Whoever they may be. It's not perfect, but it's the best that we can. I say we do a test. So an Excel test, that's about half an hour. It's not a traditional test. It's not you clicking through a thing with yes, no, or any buttons. I give them a sample set of data, and I ask them to do specific things with it. So I'm talking about a pivot table. I'm talking about a VLOOKUP, just some simple filtering and counting, and a distinct. So nothing really complicated, but I'm also not expecting them to know how to do everything within that list. list So the part of the conversation is do what you can. They have access to the internet. You can look it up and see if you can figure out how to do it. Or I sit just outside this room. If you need help with something, come and talk to me; come and let me know where you're up to. If you need any help, you've got half an hour; let's see how far you go. And actually I am not going to score someone down for coming outside and talking to me again. I'm really stuck with this. Can you help me just figure this out? And then carrying on, I will actually appreciate that a lot more than getting there and someone's done nothing or they've got a few little bits or that it's all completely wrong; even then, I will talk them through. Okay. So how did you get to this? What was your thinking to get this far? Again, if the numbers aren't perfect, that's not the end of the world. As long as I can see they're working in the right way and they're trying, that means a lot more than, okay, all of these numbers are perfect. Don't get me wrong; if someone's got it all perfect, that's going to go a long way towards it as well. But I appreciate it. It's a test that is designed to see how far they get. I am not expecting someone new to data to do all of it within half an hour. If someone's advanced, yes, absolutely. It's doable, but I'm not expecting it to be all done from someone that's new. It's just to see how far they get, what they can do. And it's testing a little bit of their word as well, because they get a lot of people that say, Oh yes, of course I can do it with Excel, but then don't know how to do just simple formulas. Even put a filter on and see how many they filter to. And a little bit of it is logic as well. So one of the things I give them a hint about at the beginning is to look at what the different emails are. So we, it's all blanked-out data. So it's like email one, email two, email three, but it's not necessarily unique. So it's, do they take the time to think, okay, it's not just filtered to everyone that has an email? I need to see how many unique ones there are. That sort of thing. It's a bit of logic and common sense as well as how do I do this in Excel. But as I say, I'm not expecting them to finish everything or have everything perfect. It's so that I can see how they approach a problem.

TIM: Thinking back on the almost-like spectrum of candidates who've taken this test. Of course, we can imagine what very good is like. They go in, they smash it, they get everything right, and they communicate it well. Great. That's obviously good. I can imagine bad would be they just can't do any of it. They don't ask for help. They flounder completely.

BETH: Exactly.

TIM: Other common patterns of where candidates fell down?

BETH: The most common places are trying to overcomplicate things. So, for instance, if I say, Yeah, how many emails are there? or How many people have a phone number? I think it was one of the questions that you can do with a simple filter. You can literally put a filter on. You say it has a number. Yes or no. That's all you need to do. But you get some people that very much go, Okay, I need to do a pivot table on this. I need to do X, Y, and Z. You don't need to overcomplicate it. Just. There is an answer there that's very straightforward without going over the top. So I think that's the first one. The other one is trying to make it too pretty with only, like, the first question answered. So I've had one that only had the first section but had done it beautifully. And it's lovely, but I'd rather you spent that extra time trying to figure out the rest of it rather than just making it pretty. I mean, that's personal preference as well, so I know there are other people that would much rather they presented it in a very nice way, but for me, I'd rather they attempt more of the questions than just spend the time to make it pretty.

TIM: Yeah, it's that. describing that because straight away through my head is running all the people I've ever worked with and myself and pattern matching where we would likely. false. I reckon if I had taken your test as a junior, I would definitely not have asked you for help. Like I would have a hundred percent plowed on myself. Even if it was plummeting into inevitable failure, I definitely would not have gotten up and asked for help. So I would have done that for better or for worse. I definitely wouldn't have made it pretty. So it would have been completely ugly. So at least. That is Okay. but. I can think of someone I've worked with who would have done the exact thing of half an hour to make it the color-coded everything to answer zero questions. I don't care about that. Just give me the answer. It's all to do with our biases of how we think.

BETH: It is. It very much goes to how we think. And I think that's partly how I choose my team; I want them to be striving for doing better. I want them to make it look good; don't get me wrong. But for me, it's, can you do it? No, can you make it look pretty? But then that goes back to the communication as well. Even if it doesn't look the prettiest, you still have to be able to communicate it. But then I go back to if it was all wrong; that doesn't mean that they have automatically failed. What I will then get them to do is go, Take me through how you did this. And if they have made a solid attempt and been able to show some skills in how they've attempted it, it still goes a long way towards whether I hire them or not. Then it will go back to those traditional interview skills and getting to know them that way as well.

TIM: You mentioned in passing looking for that kind of adaptability. Obviously these candidates are fairly junior. They're going to have to learn a lot pretty quickly. The Soft skills, hard skills, and adaptability have been so common. Talking point on this podcast and last month, I think because of how rapidly AI is changing, everyone's job is changing so quickly. It's like almost the ground beneath our feet is moving in a way.

BETH: Much

TIM: Is there any kind of way you specifically try to look for adaptability in that interview? Any cues that Canada would give that they either are or are not, or a growth mindset or not growth mindset kind of person?

BETH: I will ask for more; I'll ask for examples in day-to-day life or things that aren't necessarily traditional jobs. So if I look at my team, all, almost all come from nontraditional data backgrounds. I've got one that did finance and business analytics at university. It's more the traditional one. Another one that did sport management. I've got one that comes from a politics background and one that was a botanist. So very much with botany and plants. And the last member of my team was a hairdresser. Actually, the skills that they have, they can very much come from day-to-day life. They don't have to come from a traditional job. And yeah, those personal skills, that interaction, that can come from anywhere. And even learning data. You do not have to have traditionally learned data. The botanist on my team, she worked data entry when I was hiring her. That's what she was doing at that point. So she had familiarity with data. That's something that she was really keen on, really wanted to dive into, but she hadn't had the chance yet. So for me, it's looking for those people that are going to have the drive and the want to learn and then giving them that opportunity. There's very much a mindset that people either have to drive or want to learn. or they want to be appreciated for the skills they have. And don't get me wrong, that can be absolutely fine, depending on your role, but with the industry that I work in, events, we are very fast-moving; we are always changing, and I'm going to need someone who's got the drive to want to learn and do something and change. If it's great to have the skills that you've got, but at this moment in time, everything is changing. You cannot stagnate. If you stagnate, you are going to be three years behind in no time because it's changing so quickly. So to have that drive and the will and the want to learn and the curiosity that you're going to go out and find out about something rather than wait to be told to look into it, that goes a long way.

TIM: Absolutely. And something we all have to remember, even as I get a little bit older, is that you've got to keep plugging away. I have been literally plugging away recently because I bought an electric guitar, and I've never played an instrument in my life. So it's been very humbling just to get back to ground zero on a skill where you have no idea what you're doing. Could barely pick the thing up. And this is so humbling. I'm so terrible. And you've got to just embrace the suck.

BETH: completely. I will nerd out a little bit here, but I play Dungeons and Dragons. So recently, I learned to Dungeon Master. So to actually run the games myself. So again, it was something very different that I was learning to do, but it's been great fun. At

TIM: And what about AI specifically? Is that a skill that you want your candidates to have? Is that part of the evaluation process? Are you discussing that in the interview?

BETH: One moment, I'm ambivalent. It's changing so quickly that I think even if you don't have the skills, you're going to have to learn. But there's a lot of opportunity to learn. So I'm not worried about them already knowing. There's a lot of scope at the moment. And I think there's so much change and so much potential legal change. I don't want to bank on someone already knowing something. I'd rather, yeah, they're willing to learn about it when and if they need it and how it's going to change. Because it's, yeah, what we know now or what we thought we knew now versus what we did six months ago, or even a year ago, two years ago—we would never have thought we'd be in this situation. So it's changing so rapidly. You've just got to be open to change at the moment with it.

TIM: What about this perspective? Like I, I would think now if I were hiring a software engineer or an analyst and they, and I asked them all, What do you use ChatGPT for? And they said, I've never used it. I'd be alarmed.

BETH: That's,

TIM: So I wouldn't expect them to maybe know every detail, but some openness to it, I feel, would be important.

BETH: is absolutely fair. And yes, no, you're completely right. I would, I, yeah, I think it almost goes without saying, so don't think about saying it, but yes, I would expect them to have familiarity with it, know what it is, and know how to use at least the basics like ChatGPT and basic things like for a CV. I will expect them to have checked it. If anything comes through with spelling mistakes, that's a flat no. And don't get me wrong, I completely understand that everyone's got different complexities, that they are good at spelling or bad at spelling, or they need help with that sort of thing. But there are so many tools now that you can check them. That there is no excuse for not having the basics correct. So things like your covering letter and your CV are just not pretty, but I think that's the best way to say this: reasonable. So I have seen CVs that are in five different fonts and colors and here, there, and everywhere. And that is an immediate no. Because if someone can't take the time to frame themselves in a presentable way, they're going to really struggle framing data in that way as well. So just the basics of having it in the right way, then that goes to, yeah. Looking at it, but also there's so much we can check now with AI, ChatGPT; there are free versions, so you don't, it doesn't have to cost you anything. I don't think there's a lot of excuse for skipping on those basics.

TIM: I agree completely. The only other angle. I present that a lot of people are talking about being inundated with CVs that are all looking increasingly like each other because they've been optimized with the same model against the same GD. And so then some candidates are really looking for a way to stand out. Not that I recommend standing out by using five different fonts or eight different colors. That's just my brain exploding even thinking about it. Maybe there's a better way to stand.

BETH: There are definitely better ways to stand out. Just try a nontraditional format. So a lot of the CVs you read from top to bottom with a big block of text there, go down a big block of text, have a non-traditional format, go for text boxes, and have a shaded picture that shows in the background that's linked to something that you do with work. It's not necessarily a picture of yourself. I know there's a lot of conversation about whether you should and shouldn't have photos. I'm not going to get into that one. Make it stand out with, you can have subtle differences, but yeah, the way you lay things out. Do you know what? If you wanted to really get my attention, lay it out in a spider diagram. Do something completely different with how you lay it out and how you get that information through. You don't have to do that standard. Okay, this is my name. This is my address. These are my qualifications. This is what I do. You can put different things in there and more interesting pieces. And also tell me something about yourself. So it's not just about, okay, this is where I went to university. This is the job I do, and these are the three tasks that I do in my job. So those tasks that you do in a job, relate to it. How is that useful for data? So how does it actually affect the role that you're applying for? Then tell me something about yourself. Yeah. You're learning guitar in your free time. I work with children. I volunteer. I, yeah, I like to, I don't know, go dancing. Just tell me something that's you, because that little personal bit will start to introduce you as a person. Not you as this robot that's going to work for someone.

TIM: Devil's advocate to this might be so I can think of a particular example of my own hiring. So I remember trying to hire a product analyst for a role in the last company I worked at. I vividly remember looking down at their hobby section. And seeing that they were a semi-professional footballer in Brazil. I have a very strong bias towards Brazilians because of football and everything. And we had a gun indoor soccer team at our local uni where we just kept losing the grand final by like a goal. each semester, and we needed one more player to get us across the line. I saw this guy's CV. As soon as I saw it, I stood up and said to my colleagues, Oh, look at Guillermo, whatever his name was, like, Oh, let's bring this guy for an interview. I swear to God he got an interview at least partly because he was apparently good at football. Now I didn't ask him to start doing juggling in the office. I asked him to do some A/B testing experimentation. And in the end, we offered the role to someone else. I feel like sanity. And meritocracy did prevail, but he definitely got an interview, at least partly based on his football ability, which I feel is slightly unfair to the other 600 candidates who had nothing to do with football.

BETH: It probably is, but he wrote something that stood out. So he wrote something about himself that stood out and made you go, Okay, hang on, that's a bit different. So then it's looking at, okay, what's unique, and it can be something to do with work. It can be something completely separate. Yeah, my thing is I run brownies. So I'm a district commissioner for Girl Guiding in Putney, and I run a Brownie unit on a Monday night. It's something completely different, but actually, ah, so Brownies are seven- to 10-year-old girls. It's a girls scouting.

TIM: Yep.

BETH: It's actually Girl Scouts, but it's labeled differently in the UK. Girl Guiding. So yeah, I run a group every Monday, and that's what I do with my time. But that is something that is a bit different. And actually most people look at that and go, That means that you interact with people on a weekly basis. I can run a group. So I've got the management skills. And actually I can corral a group of 20 children. That will automatically give you some outside skills and ideas of what I'm like in real life, because that's not just, I do this on my computer, and I do this, and I do this. That's some real-life interaction of actually what you do. So that, and no, you're not going to put paragraphs on it. You're going to have three or four lines. So you've got to keep it sweet, but just to give some context on who you are as a person. That can go a long way to making you stand out. And then you've got your cover letter as well to bring that to life. So if you've got any core things that you want to bring up, that you want to pull out, that go, Okay, this is for me; this is why I suit this job. This is what I do that makes me the person for this role. You've also got your cover letter. They can be very standard with AI now. So yes, get AI to help, but if you get AI to write it, it's going to look at it the same as everyone else's. So it's not going to stand out.

TIM: What would you think of I don't know if you've ever used a Loom product; it's a way to create little videos in the browser. Would you ever accept, like, almost like a video cover letter? Hey, I created this little video for you to

BETH: Ooh,

TIM: I wanted the job, like a 30-second pitch or something.

BETH: Do you know what no one is? We haven't had that yet, but I wouldn't be opposed to it; that wouldn't put me off. I think, yeah, they'd, if they've got the confidence to, do something like that. Yeah, no, that wouldn't pick me up at all. I'm not.

TIM: Yeah. It's

BETH: Come in through our system, but,

TIM: You can include a hyperlink. So it might just be

BETH: Yes.

TIM: in the cover letter almost. Yeah.

BETH: Yeah, that wouldn't be a bad thing at all. Don't worry. You've got to be able to communicate in the written format too, but then you can test it in an interview too. So not a problem. I think if someone's going to try something innovative and different, that's probably going to interest me more than if someone's put in a load of plot GPT. Please write this for me. Because 10, if they're all run through TrackGTB2, they're all going to come out with the same format and in the same structure. It's not going to catch an eye. It's not going to stand out.

TIM: No, it's going to have the polar opposite effect. You're just going to fall into the sea of noise with the hundreds or thousands of other candidates applying for all these open roles.

BETH: Which doesn't mean you can't get it to help you. You can absolutely get a tool like that to help you write it, but then take the time to go through it and make it different. And

TIM: Yes. So it's like using the tool in the right way. It's not like a brute force blunt object where it's Do everything for me, and I'll just do nothing and expect magic to happen.

BETH: With any sort of AI tool, you always have to check it in person yourself anyway, because they can spew out some weird and wonderful things. Which can also be quite funny, but you are not going to get the job.

TIM: Yes, that's a more accurate way of describing it. I can't believe that we've let the AI companies get away with euphemism of hallucinations. Just call it what it is. Bullshit lies that you've made up crap,

BETH: Yeah.

TIM: Hallucinations are such a. Sugar-coated way of putting it, I think. Yeah, what did you say, spewing out some nonsense or

BETH: Yeah. It is just, I mean, it's, in a way, it's good because it's there; you have to have that human element that checks it. So in a way, I suppose it means that no one's going to lose their jobs quite yet until they fix that bit. Everything's going to need human supervision. You can get some very weird and wonderful things with AI.

TIM: You can; you've got to be careful. Back to your hiring process. The, what seems to me to be like the most potentially data-driven element of that process would be the test that's involved.

BETH: Yeah.

TIM: Do you grade people and give them, like, a score by testing them per question?

BETH: Not really. Yeah, even then, there's not like hard data numbers against them because people approach it in different ways. So what I will do with 'em is part, so we have the test first, and then part of that half an hour afterwards is to go through that test and then have the traditional interview questions. So part of that, of going through it, is okay for them to take me through it, and then I will actually go through and go, Okay, this is how you could have. Or this is how you could have approached it in order to get that, or, yeah, you might not want to try and overcomplicate it here. This is how you can get it in a more simple format. But I don't really go through and give them an exact grade. If anyone asks for feedback afterwards, I'm happy to have a call to go through any feedback from it or write them some points in an email. I'm always open to feedback because otherwise you can't learn. If no one tells you what you did wrong or how it didn't work, there's no way you can learn from it.

TIM: And it sounds like you're giving them feedback live in the moment anyway when you run through it with them.

BETH: I think face-to-face for me is always going to be the best way at that point. Especially when it's someone you've never met before.

TIM: And I would have thought that's also an opportunity to gauge their receptiveness to feedback. Have you ever had a candidate who was like, No, I'm right. You're wrong. Or like you felt a tension in accepting the feedback.

BETH: Yes. Yeah, that's a good point. And it's something that you, very few have been belligerent about and said, Nope, I'm right. But you do get some that you can visibly see them go. If you didn't want me to try it, you should have just told me how to do it in the first place rather than try to let me figure it out. I've had more of that response than a no, I'm right. Because if they've got the right answer, then yeah, usually you can explain why it's right. But I do give them the opportunity to explain how they've got to that point. So if they think they're right, then we can go through it that way. But you also do get some that crumple. That gets very scared about that negative, not negative, constructive feedback. And you can see them visibly getting upset and withdrawing, and that's not a good thing either. Because you have to be able to take feedback and learn, and not everything is going to go right. Even for me, don't get me wrong; I make mistakes. We all make mistakes. But we have to be able to take that feedback on board and learn from those mistakes. So part of it, you can definitely gauge how they react to feedback.

TIM: It's helpful for them also, if you're going to be the manager or the two up or what have you. you. You're giving them feedback in the moment. They can, yeah, see how they receive that and think about working with you as well, rather than just you peppering them with questions in a traditional interview.

BETH: Exactly. So one of my reasons is I don't like the traditional interview questions because, I just find you get a limited amount of honesty from a lot of people. It's really difficult to gauge how honest they are. One of my favorite ones, though, is to ask someone to say what someone else would think about them. So if I was out, had a coffee with your manager, your current manager, or your last, your favorite manager, what would they say about you? Or if I were in the pub with your mates and had a drink, what would they say about you? So rather than code.

TIM: My mind is racing.

BETH: What's your opinion of yourself? What would someone else say about you? And I think that that can tell a lot. You can tell a lot from a person about that. But again, it's relying on that honesty and that feedback. It depends where you work as well. Events is, it's on the smaller side for worldwide. In the UK especially. So most people. You will know someone in almost every events company. So there will always be someone that you know, that you can get the lowdown from if they come from the events background. Most people in my team have not ended up coming from the events background, but that's just where we've been a bit more open.

TIM: You mentioned part of the challenge in. interviewing is that it's almost like a bit too mechanical. People aren't necessarily being their authentic selves. I'd say on both sides of the table, like at its worst, it's almost like this robotic list of questions, pre-prepared answers. Thank you very much. And part of it is definitely the setting, and you describe the vibe you try to set up where you're obviously a very friendly person, and it must help people settle in and feel relaxed. Have you ever considered, or have you ever tried, like, a That's if you can get out of the office; let's go to the cafe or a pub or do a walking interview or something like that.

BETH: I've thought about it. I do sometimes more for catch-ups with my current team, so that definitely will go out of the office. Go for a coffee or go to—there's a park around the corner, that sort of thing. But when it's someone new, I don't know how they're going to react, and I'm much less likely to take someone out of this office environment when I don't know them. I don't know how they react. And if we're having that open conversation, I would rather have that in a controlled environment, at least to start off with. It's very different when you know someone. But he can't tell it from the screen, but I'm quite a small person. I'm five foot two. So the majority of the people I interview are bigger, bulkier, and much taller than I am. So there's definitely an instinctive bit of me that goes just. No, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that. Just from a, I don't know this person view, but then taking a bit longer to think about it. I just generally wouldn't feel comfortable with that as well, because from their point of view, all of our offices and all of our meeting rooms have glass walls. So we've got doors, but they've all got glass walls. There is nowhere in the office that you are totally alone with someone. So there is never going to be any sort of. Accusations of impropriety on any side that there can't be because it's the way we've done it. It's open plan. It's glass doors, sorry, glass walls. And there's always that visibility there. I think that probably comes from me working with children as well as not putting myself in the situation where I am alone with someone because I don't want to risk anything going wrong or appearing to have gone wrong from either side. And you, so having that as an interview setting with someone that I don't know, I wouldn't feel comfortable with that.

TIM: That's interesting. Yeah. Perspective and angle that I hadn't really thought about, but yeah, I can see, sorry. Natural connection, isn't it? Yeah.

BETH: But that's the cautious way. The idea sounds good, but I think for me, that's not something I'd be very comfortable doing.

TIM: But maybe a final interview or something, maybe once you know them a bit or what. Have you? Maybe it's exactly that. Further down the line two interviewers, three of you in a park, maybe it's a bit

BETH: Yeah. Then it's a bit different if there are more of you, but also then it's like you don't want to gang up on someone. As soon as you bring in more than one person, I have, so my manager Sam will sometimes come in for the end of interviews as well. But there's a—you can see the change in someone. As soon as you bring another person into that room, it doesn't matter how friendly they are; there's suddenly two against one, and people get a lot less comfy with that. They start to go, Oh God, it's an interview. I need to be more formal with this. So generally, I found one-on-one interviews. You get a better rapport with someone. They don't feel as outnumbered. They feel a bit more relaxed with it.

TIM: Yeah. And that's such an unappreciated fact, I think, because a lot of companies would, rightly, talk up the benefit of having, oh, let's make sure we have a panel so we can get a diverse set of views on this candidate.

BETH: Yeah.

TIM: Which is fair enough, but I wouldn't want to have an interview with three or four people that I've never met before. Like I'd be battling on all fronts. Who do I look at? Like whose body language am I gauging? Who's asking the questions?

BETH: You don't know these people. You don't know who the priority is. You don't know what the, essentially, the pecking order is in that company. No matter how much you research beforehand, you don't know the internal politics. And you can't. Union, I'm going to be able to win with everyone. So if you've got one person you're interacting with and focusing on, it's a lot easier to go. To get to know that person and what they want, then it is to try and deal with four people at once, or, yeah, as soon as you go, just even to two, there's definitely that change in atmosphere, I think.

TIM: Yeah. If, and if I think back to sales calls over the years, the difference between, yeah, just one person and you having a relaxed conversation versus, oh, now I'm on a Zoom call with like half of a company, like public speaking versus chatting to your mate. It's a very different vibe.

BETH: Exactly. And for an interview, I want to get to know the person. I want them to be as relaxed as possible so that I get an honest feedback from them and a good understanding of who they are. Don't be wrong; it's not always perfect. I've had good hires and I've had bad hires, and it doesn't always work, but that's what I lean towards.

TIM: Yeah. We all want that kind of transparency and authenticity, and the closer we can get to the truth in hiring. I think that the better off we are,

BETH: Definitely.

TIM: Beth, if you could ask our next guest one question, what question would that be? BETH: I saw the question before, and I did have a think about this. I think I would ask, if you cast your mind back to five years ago, where did you think we would be at this point? And how is it different from what you thought it would be?

TIM: Where we would be as like a world or, yeah,

BETH: More like a data perspective, especially with all the changes in AI, but also generally on a world basis. Five years ago, it was pre-COVID. So we hadn't even thought about any of that sort of thing, but I know when I, as I was thinking back to, okay, pre-2020, what did I think we would have? What would you have done as a world by this point, both in data and technology? Where do you think we would have been? And then, yeah, it's quite different.

TIM: I should think so. Yes. Okay. That's a good one.

BETH: Might be too big of a question, so feel free. to change it.

TIM: No. It's good. I really like it. And you've now got me thinking as well. But I will level that one at our next guest at some point next week and see what they say. Beth, it's been a relaxing, enjoyable, fruitful, and insightful conversation today. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of your wisdom and smiley face with our audience.

BETH: Excellent. Thank you very much. I've had fun and it's been a good chat. Very interesting.