High Volume Hiring Podcast: Recent Episodes
Evergreen Podcasts
Are you involved in the hiring of dozens or even hundreds of employees a year? If so, you'll know that the typical sourcing tools, tactics, and strategies just don't scale. This podcast features news, tips, case studies, and interviews with the world's leading experts about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to high-volume hiring.
Bill Boorman calls himself a recovering recruiter. He has 40 years of experience in the industry, is strategic consultant to a number of talent acquisition technology companies, and was the founder of the Tru unconferences.
Employers may be surprised at some of what Bill has to say, including that the process of hiring people -- high volume or not -- is remarkably similar around the world but with some local nuances. Even more surprising, however, is the discussion on how unimportant an employer's brand is to a candidate deciding what jobs to apply to, yet that doesn't mean that the brand is unimportant. It is important, but not until much later in the hiring process than many employers have been led to believe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mark Feffer is the Executive Editor of RecruitingDaily. He is also the Founder and Executive Editor of the HCM Technology Report. He’s written for TechTarget, HR Magazine, SHRM, Dice Insights, TLNT.com and TalentCulture, as well as Dow Jones, Bloomberg and Staffing Industry Analysts. He likes schnauzers, sailing and Kentucky-distilled beverages.
In today's episode, we talk about the state of recruiting post-pandemic, some of the differences between high and more normal volumes of hiring, and the technology that makes sense for high volume employers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today's guest, Dr. Carter Gibson, is a Managing Associate at Modern Hire. He sits on the Professional Services team designing, implementing, validating, and supporting pre-hire assessments as well as overseeing ongoing research on topics such as turnover, applicant faking, and completion rates. Modern Hire specializes in pre-hire tools that supports over half the Fortune 100. Carter’s algorithms assess millions of candidates per year and his research appears in some of the top journals in the field.
Dr. Gibson addresses some of the biggest myths and fallacies about pre-hire assessments. This is a can't miss episode if you're frustrated with the assessments you're using, interested in the massive changes to how assessments are now designed and being used, or concerned that adding one will make it harder for you to hire the people you need as quickly as you need them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
No organization recruits, trains, and works to retain talent at the scale of the military, including the U.S. Army and other branches. But as robots and other forms of automation become more prevalent in every day society and on the battlefield, are we about to see a massive change in how the military recruits? Will the number of soldiers plummet? Today's guest, Chad Sowash of The Chad and Cheese Podcast, describes his military experience including being in combat in Panama and, later, as a drill sergeant training troops who would later serve in Afganistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Chad's perspective as a proud veteran of the Army and two decades in sales and thought leadership in the HR tech space makes him the perfect guest as we talk through how automation is impacting the high volume hiring that is so integral to the military of every nation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Conventional wisdom says that the lower a position appears on an organization chart, the worse that organization treats the applicants for that role. The candidates receive little to no personalized attention, are forced to interact with dehumanizing technology, and often hear nothing back if they're not hired and, sometimes, not even after they've applied. Yet, research from The Talent Board indicates the opposite: candidates who are applying to early career roles with employers who are hiring at scale are reporting better candidate experiences than those applying to roles with more requirements and which are less likely to be a part of a high volume hiring program.
Today's guest, Kevin Grossman, is the President of the Talent Board, a non-profit that has used a carrot instead of stick approach to encouraging employers to deliver a better candidate experience. In this episode, Kevin discusses what today's hourly candidates are experiencing including their communications with employers, how many minutes it takes to apply to an average role, and why some employers are having an easier time than others attracting the candidates they need both in terms of quality and quantity. The answers may surprise you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Many call themselves thought leaders and are anything but. Others are called thought leaders and justiably so. Today's guest, John Sumser of HR Examiner, falls squarely into the second group as one of the most prominent and respected thought leaders when it comes to human resource technology, including the use of recruiting automation by many of the world's largest employers.
John makes it clear that he is a fan of technology, yet he also doesn't pull any punches when it comes to identifying how some employers use software in a way that creates great legal, financial, and ethical risks. This episode is a don't miss for those who are currently or considering the use of tools that leverage artificial intelligence as John lays out not just the problems with using AI to screen and select candidates, but also how it can be well used to assist in that process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There are many who can rightly be called experts about high volume hiring in one country or another. Far fewer have expertise across multiple countries. Almost none have expertise globally. Today's guest, Kevin Wheeler, has expertise globally.
Kevin is the Founder of The Future of Talent Institute, a consortium of organizations and individuals who explore emerging issues in talent management, staffing, recruiting, employee development, retention, and leadership development. Its members comprise a wide range of sizes, industries, and locations.
In today's episode, host Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter and Kevin discuss how the tools and tactics used by high volume hiring organizations in a country like the U.S. at times are remarkably similar and at other times remarkably different from those used by somewhat similar organizations in another country like Australia. They also talk about how high volume hiring has been impacted by concerns over a recession, whether that's coming at some point in the distant future, right around the corner, or already here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Regardless of the industry, few can rightly be referred to as the godfather of that industry. Today's guest, Gerry Crispin, is the godfather of recruiting. He's been immersed in high volume and other recruiting for more than five decades. He's led talent acquisition teams, been in career services for a top engineering school, worked for a decade as a leader of one of the world's top recruitment marketing agencies, churned out impactful recruiting books almost as quickly as Stephen King churns out horror novels and, for 26 years with CareerXroads, which faciltates peer-to-peer, invitation only meetings with corporate staffing leaders who collegially and confidentially share information with each other about their hiring practices.
A year ago, CareerXroads formed a similar community for talent solutions vendors and College Recruiter was one of the founding members. What started as a community of 15 members has grown to 21 and is on the way to thirty.
Gerry shares some formative moments from his career, including what led to the founding of CareerXroads in 1996 (hint, it had something to do with the Internet) and how that organization has evolved as the needs of its members have evolved. Yet, from Gerry's perspective, little has changed since 1996 when it comes to recruiting at scale. The software and other tools may be different. The recruiting leaders may have different names. But, at the end of the day, organizations can better solve their high volume hiring needs by focusing more on expanding the available labor pool than by continually looking for ways to reduce their recruitment costs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Many organizations hire candidates at scale, but some of them hire for professional services, others retail associates, others for hospitality roles such as guest service workers in hotels. Few recruiting experts have the wealth of experience across different industries, sizes of organizations, and countries as today's guest: Ben Gotkin of Recruiting Toolbox. In addition to loving and knowing a lot about crab and ice hockey, Ben loves and knows a lot about all kinds of recruiting, including high volume hiring, as he's both led recruiting for and consulted with many of the world's most admired and largest employers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As the weather starts to change, many of us are already thinking ahead to the holiday season. Perhaps no organization has so many people who are doing so much thinking ahead to the holiday season as Amazon. Not coincidentally, no other organization has ever hired as many people so quickly to cope with customer demand as Amazon, the subject of today's podcast.
Yet can Amazon continue to hire the people that it needs? The uncomfortable truth is that it cannot -- and internally admits so -- without fundamentally changing its approach to how it recruits and retains its largely part-time, hourly workforce. Internal documents reveal that Amazon is already running out of potential employees in multiple key markets and will run out in most within several years. Instead of reacting to the problem when it is too late, leaders at Amazon have identified the threat and are working feverishly to solve the problem. What is apparent is that the problem cannot be solved easily nor will one change -- large or small -- solve the problem. Instead, Amazon is actively working along multiple paths to ensure that it can continue not just to survive, but also to thrive, in a world where its current high volume hiring practices will no longer be feasible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When many of us talk about high volume hiring, we think of retailers, restaurants, call centers, and warehouses. Many of them do hire at scale, but so does almost every staffing company. And many of those staffing companies assist or even drive the volume hiring for those retailers, restaurants, call centers, and warehouses.
In today's episode of the High Volume Hiring Podcast, host Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter talks with Jon Beck, the Founder and CEO of Ursus, Inc. and host of the Hiring University podcast. Ursus is a technical and creative staffing provider headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area with employees and clients located almost everywhere in the United States.
Jon and Steven talk about the experiences they and their organizations have had over the years running what some would call virtual companies but which can better be described as fully remote workforces. Unlike the organizations who adopted a remote workforce model because of Covid, both Ursus and College Recruiter chose to be fully remote years before Covid. That's led to some interesting parallels between their organizations, including the need for managers who are able and willing to manage by outcomes instead of process. The question of whether you completed the assignment as directed becomes far more important to a well-qualified manager than whether you came in early, stayed late, worked hard, or were dressed in a manner that others might deem to be appropriate.
The conversation concludes with Jon picturing himself as the head of talent acquisition for a large organization that hires at scale and the three things that he would want to make sure it does. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Caitlin MacGregor, the Co-Founder and CEO of Plum, joins the High Volume Hiring Podcast to talk assessments. With host Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter, Caitlin distinguishes between old-style assessments like DISC and Myers-Briggs and modern assessments that use science to accurately predict the productivity of a candidate if hired into a specific role with a specific organization. Organizations large and small, including those hiring at scale, are discovering that scientifically valid assessments allow them to efficiently and effectively broaden their applicant pool to include candidates they and their competitors may never have considered if all they had to go on was a resume. The result is increased time-to-hire, increased diversity, increased productivity, and reduced cost. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today's episode of the High Volume Hiring Podcast brings us Elena Agaragimova, Host of the SHIFT podcast, Founder of Bloom Youth, Co-Founder of Bessern, and Head of Talent Acquisition and Development for Horizon Industries.
Host Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter and Elena discuss the reality that one of the primary reasons that some organizations need to hire at scale is because their retention of existing employees is so low. If those employers can reduce their turnover, they can reduce their hiring needs. Steven and Elena agree that one of the best ways to improve retention is to invest in learning and development. By spending more on current employees, employers can spend less recruiting new employees.
We also learn about Elena's background including growing up in Russia, moving to the United States when she was 13 years old, why she wasn't accepted into any four-year college or university when she applied during high school, and the choices -- some deliberate and some not -- that she then made to continue her education and build her career. In short, we learn how Elena is the epitome of why more organizations should embrace the hiring of non-traditional candidates and how that inevitably leads to a more diverse and therefore productive workforce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Max Armbruster, CEO of chatbot company Talkpush and host of the Recruitment Hackers Podcast joins the High Volume Hiring Podcast to help our listeners better understand what a chatbot is, what kinds of employers can best use them, and why an employer would want to add one to their recruitment tech stack.
In today's episode, host Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter and Max agree that the use of good recruitment automation systems enable employers to expand their talent pools, increase their click-to-apply and apply-to-hire conversion rates, shorten their time-to-hire and other response times, and massively lower their costs-per-hire. Yet as promising as these systems are for some employers and beneficial for many who are already using them, they exist in the middle-of-the-funnel, meaning that the employer first has to get candidates into the hiring funnel, perhaps through sourcing efforts or advertising their job openings on niche or general job boards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this first, full episode of the High Volume Hiring Podcast, host Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter interviews Dr. Noelle Chesley, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Sociology Studies at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. In the July 1, 2022 UWM Report, Dr. Chesley wrote about the pros and cons of automated hiring systems, which include applicant tracking systems (ATS), job boards, assessment sites, and video interviewing platforms. She identified four primary problems: (1) algorithms may not use the best criteria for matching; (2) using automated hiring systems can create problems at scale; (3) more recruiters want "purple squirrels"; and (4) automated hiring systems can lead to alientation. In today's podcast, Dr. Chesley describes and discussed each of these in a balanced, nonjudgmental manner. That a hiring system is automated is neither good nor bad, but how they're designed and used can lead to positive or negative outcomes for candidates, employers, and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Are you involved in the hiring of dozens or even hundreds of employees a year? If so, you'll know that the typical sourcing tools, tactics, and strategies just don't scale. This podcast features news, tips, case studies, and interviews with the world's leading experts about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to high-volume hiring.
Subscribe now to join Steven Rothberg for his new podcast, available August 22nd! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices