The Full Desk Experience

Chris Hesson [00:00:00]:
I think the relationships is hands down number one. And for those of you who've been in this industry and seen the market cycle up and down, those long term relationships are the ones you can always continue to go back to. When a client, they know you and they trust you and they understand the level of work you deliver and they understand how you operate and you reflect them in their organization in the best light and similarly, the candidate knows you have their best interest in mind. You're not afraid to tell them, no, this isn't a good fit job and here's why. Let's pivot and let's look somewhere else. That human component is going to be the unique factor because that is something by definition. AI is not. It is not human.

Chris Hesson [00:00:34]:
It can't be and have that human component.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:37]:
Hi, I'm Kortney Harmon, Director of Industry relations at Crelate. This is the Industry Spotlight, a series of the Full desk experience, a Crelate original podcast. In this series, we will talk with top leaders and influencers who are shaping the talent industry, shining a light on popular trends, the latest news, and the stories that laid the groundwork for their success. Welcome back to another episode of the Full Desk Experience. Industry Spotlight. Welcome back to another episode of the Full Desk Experience. I'm Kortney Harmon and if you have been following us at all, we have been talking all things AI. Recently, I have received so many questions and phone calls and meetings on my calendar about tell me more.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:25]:
Give me a brainstorming session, see if my thought process is wrong, people wanting to know if their stance was okay, and I want to show you that we're listening. So today we're taking a deeper dive in how AI is reshaping how recruiting actually gets done day to day. We've talked very high level, but now we're kind of get into the nitty gritty. Now here's the thing. There's a massive gap between AI recruiting hype that we're seeing in the headlines and what's actually happening in the trenches. There's a lot of wonderful theoretical things. So some of the questions I've heard is the idea of what's a recruiter's new routine look like? How are we breaking bad habits or are we really creating new bad habits? And maybe most importantly, the one that separates is how are recruiters who are thriving with AI separating those who are struggling? So we're going to talk about all the things on a day to day basis, not only as an individual contributor, but as an operations leader. So today my guest is one of my favorite as always.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:26]:
And it's been a hot minute since he's been on this show. Chris Hessen. And Chris actually leads our professional services team here at Crew Late, which means he's hands on with hundreds of recruiters and recruiting teams as they implement optimize. He's seen the AI understanding where things should lie in our process. And he and I used to train at MRI many moons ago, so he's seeing how AI is changing recruiting and today. So we're going to talk about the day to day reality. I'm going to pick his brain. If I don't ask him a question you're thinking of, I want you to email it to me and we'll do another part two to this episode.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:00]:
So, Chris, thank you so much for spending your day back from Cedar Point and your wonderful day off to come hang out with me.

Chris Hesson [00:03:07]:
My pleasure. Excited to be here.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:08]:
The question is, did Siren's curse break down yesterday?

Chris Hesson [00:03:11]:
I am not very patient when it comes to waiting in line for rides. So if it was more than 45 minutes, I didn't do it. Which meant I rode max air five times.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:21]:
Are you serious?

Chris Hesson [00:03:22]:
Skyhawk 4. Because we didn't have to wait.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:25]:
So I love it. And we're going on Friday, so I will let you know on the Sirens.

Chris Hesson [00:03:30]:
Curse because my Rougarou was down, Raptor was down, so.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:33]:
Really? Wow, man.

Chris Hesson [00:03:35]:
Rougarou is my daughter's favorite. So.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:37]:
Is it?

Chris Hesson [00:03:37]:
We didn't get to do that one.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:39]:
That was the old mantis, correct?

Chris Hesson [00:03:40]:
Yes, I believe.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:41]:
Yeah. Okay.

Chris Hesson [00:03:42]:
Yep.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:42]:
Sorry for those non Cedar Point Westerners. Yeah, yeah. Cedar Point is here in Sandusky, Ohio and I'm an adrenaline junkie and love all kinds of roller coasters. And Chris lives very close as well, so he is a frequent flyer as well. So. All right, Chris, let's talk about AI. I know it is consumed, everybody. It is kind of like the concept of the ambient light that is behind our every dayto day.

Kortney Harmon [00:04:07]:
And it's changing. It's becoming smarter every day. Things are changing every day. So let's just start with a very broad general question in the idea of. Tell me about maybe as a recruiter, how are their daily routines starting to be transformed with the concept of AI? We had the generative AI the past year, but what's changing? Because that was many moons ago, that it was just generative AI, Right?

Chris Hesson [00:04:34]:
Yeah. It's crazy how fast things change. And I think if you look at AI, you can't look at it in a vacuum or by itself. It's where does this tie into your overall tech stack and process? And that keyword there is then process. So if I look at recruiters and really how their day to day is impacted is it is easier and takes less effort and work on their part to stay organized, to stay planned, to stay on top of things. I think for far too long it's been easy for recruiters to take a very fragmented and shotgun style approach to searches, to whatever they're working on. Tech stack and AI really is helping you narrow in and provide focus. You're taking that entropy, all of that disorder that exists and it's helping put structure around what are you doing, how are you doing it and how can you do it more effectively and efficiently?

Kortney Harmon [00:05:24]:
I love that. And sometimes you don't know what you don't know. And honestly I love to hear how other people are using it to be like how can I translate it into my day to day? So we're going to hopefully get a few of those pieces today and not necessarily that they're aha moments but how should I transition my process? So obviously we've been talking about AI does a lot of email writing. So talk to me about what the most surprising way you've seen recruiters actually using AI in their day to day work.

Chris Hesson [00:05:50]:
I mean the generative AI piece is I think what initially caught all of our attention. The idea that it could write a book for you or generate a photograph. I mean it's pretty incredible what AI can create, but all of that creation is predicated on it having the right information and you kind of teaching it how to work. So I've worked with some offices who are using the generative component, but it's what and how are they feeding it in? I remember creating incredibly in depth candidate summaries and all of these presentations, submittal documents, especially on retained searches that would take hours to put together. And it was beyond just a pretty formatted resume. We do a deep dive diagram of everything about this person. Well now having the ability to say not only here's a resume, but here's my notes, here's interactions, here's everything in the context of the role and having the generative AI push out more than just a two or three sentence email, but I want to create a fairly polished document that I can actually send over to a client that puts everything in the context of this candidate's fit for this particular role. So I've seen some really neat things where it's not only the text that's generated, but even the formatting of how it's generated, being able to put their logo in appropriate spots.

Chris Hesson [00:07:05]:
I mean I worked at a firm where we had that was somebody's full time job is creating all of our slate presentations. Now the fact that you can create a prompt, pull it together, have your own GPT to develop it, it's really, really cool what you're able to leverage.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:18]:
So not only are you saving a resource and not having to pay for that resource, but you're saving yourself a boatload of time as well.

Chris Hesson [00:07:24]:
Absolutely.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:25]:
I love it. You know, we have this classic problem in our industry. At least you and I have seen this firsthand. So I'm not saying that this is what everyone does, but we get to the point that we're like, hey, if we need to find and source someone, I'm going to go to LinkedIn before I go to my own database. Now are you seeing recruiters actually changing that habit with AI?

Chris Hesson [00:07:45]:
Yeah, LinkedIn has always been the drug for recruiters and if you go back a decade, I mean I remember when the pricing on LinkedIn recruiter it was fairly affordable and even when we maybe thought it was expensive, it was a quarter of the cost that it is now. But one of the benefits that LinkedIn always had is it was relatively speaking, a self updating data repository because candidates contacts would update themselves, their new roles, their new companies and the new things they're doing which it always felt most up to date. We always know there's exceptions however that I think was one of the big benefits in mail when it first launched. I'm sure everyone remembers it sounded amazing. I don't hear anybody excited about sending in mails anymore. More that you know, it just costs so much and what is it? It's like $17 an InMail on average or something crazy nowadays that it works out to. So if you look at where LinkedIn brought that value it was on the current, relatively speaking nature of the data and it was a direct way to communicate with them. This is something where AI has started to pull this as a shift.

Chris Hesson [00:08:50]:
Look at discover from the Crelate's new future. We're not only leveraging LinkedIn as one of the data sources, but having more than 30 sources looking at more than a billion records to not only identify current information for people but but then that contact information piece as well. What's their cell phone number, what's their email address? What's their work email versus their personal email. So all of those benefits that we had, AI is now able to go through incredibly large data sets to give you access to the same type of information, but it now becomes your data as opposed to something that just lives on LinkedIn and ultimately LinkedIn and Microsoft kind of own and control what you have and force you to work there. So really, really neat to see that pivot. I can just go through so much data so quickly. It's something it would take a recruiter hours and hours to sift through and do the same action.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:42]:
And not to mention getting lost in the side panel of other people who look like this person. And then you get to your neighbor that has a profile and you're like constantly scrolling and it's a waste of.

Chris Hesson [00:09:54]:
Time because when you're sourcing in a social media platform, you have all of those social distractions that then start to pull you away from what is that core activity you're doing now. There's always benefits in some of that information. You see a post from someone and hey aligns. However, it's easy for that to become a black hole of time where you look down at your watch and it has been four hours since you jumped on LinkedIn and you have no idea what you've actually accomplished or done in the intervening time.

Kortney Harmon [00:10:20]:
How many candidates did I put against that job order that I initially started? And what you're saying is, discover it's built in. You don't have to leave the system. And all of that information is meeting you where you are versus having to go where they are. Right.

Chris Hesson [00:10:34]:
I kind of look at it where, you know, it's like the difference between I look at my kids with a phone, like they want to listen to music, but the phone then becomes a distraction for everything else.

Kortney Harmon [00:10:43]:
Oh, yeah, it's.

Chris Hesson [00:10:44]:
I wish we could just have Walkman again. Like, come on. That would be. Give me an ipod. That's what I really want. I want something that I can listen to music and not have to be distracted by everything else. I want something where I can source and not be distracted by everything else.

Kortney Harmon [00:10:58]:
Those were the days.

Chris Hesson [00:11:00]:
They were. I still have my ipod mini somewhere in here. Yeah, my daughter found it recently.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:04]:
Yeah, I love it. I bet. Has the best music on it, too. All right, so we talked about the best recruiters, and the idea of it's helping them save some time. But we've probably also seen the best recruiters using AI to move faster. But how do they do that while still maintaining that personal touch? Because honestly, I even had a conversation yesterday and someone was upset with an agent of another system. I won't name names, but they're like, no, the only agent that they have and the one that they're pushing is the one that takes the personal touch away. And that's what makes a difference in this industry.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:40]:
And I think that's the alarming piece for most people. They're like, I don't want to have to have them talk to a bot. Or maybe some do, depending on your industry. But me, me, I'm the secret weapon. So how do people balance the AI, the personal touch? Give me your thoughts on that.

Chris Hesson [00:11:55]:
If you look at where I think AI comes into the equation, in particular, it's in that time savings on where can we give you and your team the ability to do the human things and what are the things that don't require the human component? So what are the things that you need a human person on your team to do? It's build those relationships. It's really have a probative understanding of who this person is, their desires, their benefits, their skill sets, where they fit into different organizations, how that aligns, creating that compelling, you know, statement or understanding of them as you're working with your clients. So that relationship building piece, AI should be leveraged to free up your time so that your team is building more relationships and spending more time talking to people, having those conversations. I think as we go forward, it's going to become easier and easier for people to identify those buzzwords when they're hearing AI speak or develop something. I already know there's a list of words. I'm sure you guys have seen them out there. But if you ever see an email that contains like One of these 10 words, it was probably not written by a human. Yes, we're going to naturally start picking up on some of that.

Chris Hesson [00:13:04]:
And even if it's subtle and it's not something we overtly recognize, it's going to become when you're dealing with a human, there's going to be something that feels different about it. But that human touch, people like to buy from people. I think there will be a backlash to some of the generative nature as far as email communication, especially when it's overused and abused to just spam out a million emails to a million people with a bunch of stuff. So I'm excited for AI to be a differentiator where you can play up on the human component of your business, build relationships, do things your competitors aren't.

Kortney Harmon [00:13:37]:
You talked about saving time, right? This is the whole concept behind this. And I know you and I actually ran some numbers last week as we were brainstorming, just in General. But how is the Discover agent saving time? Let's start there. Like, how is that something that's actually saving myself time? Obviously, I'm not going down the LinkedIn rabbit hole. Give me your thoughts on that.

Chris Hesson [00:13:58]:
Yeah. So we've already worked with a couple offices that have some really neat case studies that we've really looked at. One in particular had a search they were working on that they'd spent countless hours sourcing and it was pretty much dead in the water. And in the course of starting to leverage the Discover tool, they found a handful of candidates that they had found and didn't find a good way to get a hold of them. Weren't responding to inmails. They found contact info for them. They also found more candidates that they didn't realize were even out there that weren't necessarily on LinkedIn. And we found through some other sources.

Kortney Harmon [00:14:26]:
Amazing.

Chris Hesson [00:14:27]:
In the course of maybe an hour or two, they actually had interviews and screens set up with these individuals. So something that they've already invested tons of time to kind of hit a brick wall. This reopened a search that they had lost any chance of generating revenue from. But if we take that a stretch further, this gives you the ability to have that sniper rifle as opposed to a shotgun approach. And I think that is big. I mean, most of us who've been in this industry for more than 10 years saw a pivot and a shift from smile and dial and making 100 dials a day and 100 dials a day seems like so much. But that's a drop in the bucket when you're sending out 10,000 emails. So the volume game over the last decade was one of spray and pray, hope you get a response back.

Chris Hesson [00:15:13]:
Don't even have to send out a compelling message or develop a relationship because you're just doing it at such high volume. But then response rates have been dropping steadily. I'm sure if you look back to emails you sent, even a bulk email in 2010 versus today, not even close to what you're getting.

Kortney Harmon [00:15:27]:
Probably not.

Chris Hesson [00:15:28]:
So how can we take that sniper approach where I don't need to invest the time to go source 400 people, I can find 50 spot on people. Find a couple people that look good and use AI to say, go, give me 10, 12, 13, 14 more people like this, you can focus your time on the right people as opposed to having some generic meaningless dribble that you're just sending out in bulk and hoping you get a hit with.

Kortney Harmon [00:15:54]:
And with those numbers that we ran, we said the average recruiter spends around 13 hours per week sourcing candidates for, for a single role. So let's do some math. The average recruiter, and this varies, obviously where you are, what you're doing, makes around $63,000 a year. So if you go and you're saying you're going to reduce sourcing time 13 hours to, would we say about two.

Chris Hesson [00:16:16]:
Yeah.

Kortney Harmon [00:16:17]:
So you're saving 11 hours a week. 11 hours, which equals around 52 additional working days per year. Holy cow. You're gaining productivity by what, 20%. And a cost savings of around 12 and a half thousand per recruiter.

Chris Hesson [00:16:35]:
I mean, it's incredible. And that 13 hours that we'd looked at and pulled from a couple different sources, part of that is the black hole of LinkedIn and places where you go and you're just mindfully clicking through and nothing really happened. So think of taking that time. What if you could get to those 50, 60, 70, 80, spot on target candidates? Who are those people worth your time to reach out to now? You can have more time spent spent on repeated and diverse reach out methods to get a hold of them. How do you talk to them? How do you actually have a conversation? And we all know it takes more than one email, more than one call, more than one InMail to actually make connection, to let them know there's a human on the other side who, who wants to build a relationship.

Kortney Harmon [00:17:17]:
I would love 11 hours back in a day. I mean, not that I'm sourcing anymore, but that would be amazing how, what are the things that I could do? I love it. I'm going to switch topics for a second. You mentioned data. AI helps us sort through so much data. What kind of hiring signals or candidate insights are you seeing that maybe recruiters can discover with AI that they might have completely missed before?

Chris Hesson [00:17:41]:
Yeah, as AI is progressing, I think the volume of data and the ability to identify trends is something that no longer requires being in a university research department or putting together something for a large news organization or a large nonprofit. It gives you the ability at the desk level to start to have an understanding of what's going on. So if you look at where AI is going, it's almost bringing down to the working man level, the ability to say, hey, what's average turnover in my space? What are maybe individual signals that this potential person might be open versus not? What are different data points that I could leverage to understand how this candidate fits into the scheme of the industry and how can I better bring information to bear to leverage that relationship, to have a Better understanding of where they fit as hopefully I'm having more conversations.

Kortney Harmon [00:18:31]:
I literally. My girlfriend called me yesterday, or my friend called me yesterday and she was talking about a respiratory therapist. She's like, well, I don't know what respiratory therapist makes in Miami. And I'm like, oh, here, let me ask. And you know, we used to have higher analytics and all the other things that are behind the scenes. I'm not saying those aren't great tools, but I was able to find out the average salary of not only Miami, but the specific county and the specific hospital and the hourly breakdown within five seconds. Now I went to compare that to a salary com, but you know, all those things that the data that we didn't have access to or we had to jump through hoops, it is so close to our fingertips now and being able to give different value, it's mind blowing.

Chris Hesson [00:19:13]:
No, it really is. It's revolutionary. In the same way that search engines in the late 90s, early 2000s kind of opened up the Internet age, I think we're getting to the AI age where, you know, if you looked at it with traditional search engines, I remember in high school I was on science team and there was a actual category of competition on searching the Internet because there were like special ways you had to do it. And like this was back with. Man, I can't even remember all of the.

Kortney Harmon [00:19:40]:
Did you have black and green computer screen?

Chris Hesson [00:19:42]:
Oh, this, this wasn't that far back.

Kortney Harmon [00:19:44]:
But oh, I'm dating myself then.

Chris Hesson [00:19:46]:
Yes. Oh, I did at one point. But it was the fact that it was kind of this new. You had to do it a certain way and it's gotten where people are used to googling things everywhere. But I think you look at AI, the biggest use of AI in a, even a non professional manner is people are using it almost as a search engine replacement because it has a better understanding of what they're looking for as they're starting to dive in. Gives us the same thing in search. Going to understand what you need.

Kortney Harmon [00:20:09]:
Well, you haven't talked and I've watched you do demos for our product and you and I were training people on how to create the perfect Boolean string. It's not. You don't have to understand bullying anymore and you don't even have to ask your system to create a bullion string to go put it in. You literally were just typing like you were talking to ChatGPT into the discovery agent that we have and you were just having a conversation. Am I wrong?

Chris Hesson [00:20:34]:
Yeah. The fact that you can Speak as if you were talking to that intern, talking to that sorcerer in your office. What are you looking for? What do you need it? Why do you need it? Think of, you know, the information that you would give your research team, your source or your recruiter to go find. You're just having a conversation. You're able to not have that same type of structure of ands and ors. You don't need that. Just spell out, this is what I'm looking for. Go.

Chris Hesson [00:20:59]:
And the more information you give it, the more context it has, the better. That ties it in. Two of the things I really like are the ability to take all of your notes and strategy on a job, even target companies, companies to avoid the job description from the client, all of that information, and essentially feed this mass amount of data in and say, here's a picture of everything I'm looking for and why. Who should I talk to and have that? Generate your sourcing list in just a couple of seconds. And not only that, but start to pull in phone numbers and emails, work contact, personal contact. How can you now find and communicate with them something that would take 11 hours a week before now you can do with a couple clicks.

Kortney Harmon [00:21:40]:
So devil's advocate for this question, are you actually seeing things get done or do you ever see people get overwhelmed with the amount of data and options they have now? Because I think this is a turning point of who we have to be. Are you seeing both sides? Give me your thoughts on that.

Chris Hesson [00:21:57]:
Yeah, I think this is something that will take a very strategic directive, top down. The benefits of AI and an efficient tech stack are that it is saving you time, it is giving you more time back in the day. So where the rubber hits the road is what are you doing with that additional time? How are you spending that time to drive your business? Now it's very possible. You come through, you get 11 hours back in a week or whatever it ends up being, and you go to the driving range and spend that time, maybe do the same amount of business you did last year. You're just not working hard, as hard as you did to do that. I would argue that the benefits in the offices that are growing are saying, what are we doing differently? How are we going to take that time where I don't have to spend this time sourcing or finding phone numbers or trying to do this, or have a team that's leveraging that? Where can I pivot? How can I maximize and make efficient use of that time to do something differently? I think really the firms that are going to succeed are the ones that are going to drive it from. I need to spend less time finding people and now it's I'm spending more time talking to people. That is going to be the driver, I think between where AI is leading success in your business versus just you don't have to work as hard.

Kortney Harmon [00:23:11]:
I'm going to say something and I don't know if this is true from your eyes. I think those firms that are, they have a bunch of individual contributors. I think that's fine, but I don't know. Are you seeing a need more than ever to have an operations leader in organizations to change the process, check the technology, understand the optimization of those processes to see if the data that we're getting because we no longer can just measure are you making your hundred calls, are you sending your emails? Like things are changing in our world drastically fundamentally we're still doing the same things just at scale. Do you see more of a need for an operations role in these firms to try to help manage and maintain and evolve all of these things 100%.

Chris Hesson [00:23:52]:
And the more tech that comes into the recruiting space and it's continuing to grow and evolve, it's easy to find the shiny flashy, fancy new thing and now your head's on a swivel and you're just chasing spend and chasing tools. But it's how are you incorporating them together? What is the process and are they efficient? I see plenty of firms that have a huge tech spend but there is no strategic thought behind it. It is, oh, this looks cool, I'm going to do that as opposed to sitting down and having a comprehensive look at what are we really doing? What should my team be doing in the day to day? What are the things that are taking up their time that I need to free up? Where can I use AI or my tech stack to encourage that? I mean over the last decade plus in working with lots of different firms regardless of size. So this holds true for small firms, up to incredibly large firms. The stronger the operations department or group or person in the team, those are always better firms that make more money. I mean I look back at the firms that eight people are doing 15 million a year. It's because they have a buttoned up process. They understand what they're doing and how they're doing and why they're doing.

Chris Hesson [00:24:58]:
And they have an operations person who's really driving it and understanding effectiveness, getting into forecasting and planning and understands kind of the load and when they need to start to pivot, that's not going to Go away. I think that person now becomes even more important to your question because they need to understand how does this tech tie into our process? What is something that moves beyond just being a cool tool that sounds great, to how are we actually using it and how can we ensure we have an ROI from our spend?

Kortney Harmon [00:25:27]:
Okay, you talked about processes and you and I know my personality loves me a good process. So when you're helping organizations move from I'm going to say traditional recruiting to AI powered processes, because that's kind of what we're moving to. What are the two to three maybe fundamental changes that determine whether they're actually going to scale successfully two to three processes?

Chris Hesson [00:25:50]:
Yeah. So I think one thing is going to be the reporting shift. First off, having reporting at all. I am still shocked at the number of firms that have no context or sense for what their teams are doing or why. And everyone just kind of does what they do to make things work. And I've seen firms who are successful doing that, but the owner, the management team has no involvement. You're kind of making by dumb luck because you have good people and if those good people leave, what happens next? And unfortunately, Kortney, we have both seen firms that just relied on having people who manage themselves. And when they go off and start their own firm or leave to go somewhere else, everything tanks.

Chris Hesson [00:26:28]:
You need a process that is going to go beyond individual people on your team, something that is repeatable, something that can drive future growth. And I think having that data to report on is going to start to become incredibly important. AI can do great at starting to drive and derive different metrics. With crelate, we often have firms that are integrating with power bi I know that's not really the AI side, but just that part of data starts to give you additional insight into what's working and then how do you work with your clients. Second, I'd say that there's so many firms where they have again a big tech spend. They have a whole bunch of different AI tools, but their teams aren't actually using them. There is so much wasted money of the owner. Management went out, found a tool, looks awesome, they buy it, but then there is no boots on the ground deployment of use of it.

Chris Hesson [00:27:16]:
You show them one time and a couple people maybe say hey, that looks great. They but they just keep doing what they've always done. Change only happens when you change what you're doing and how you're doing it. And just spending money on a tool isn't going to drive success for you. So where is that ROI coming from. So again, I think reporting, understanding your team's effectiveness, understanding your driving process are big. And to me again, that type ties into a strong ops role. Being very strategic in your business and knowing why and how you're making money as opposed to just know it's working or it isn't.

Chris Hesson [00:27:50]:
You need to understand the why behind it.

Kortney Harmon [00:27:52]:
Okay, that leads me into this might be part two to that question. What's the biggest operational mistake you see organizations making with their data that prevents them from scaling their recruiting efforts with AI?

Chris Hesson [00:28:04]:
One of the things that AI does is it has the ability to look through large sets of data. Now that only works if it knows where to look. There are still so many firms who people have their own spreadsheets that they just operate out of themselves because that's how they've always done it and that's what they like others, they have just legal pads and paper stacked up on their desk. I mean you could take the best notes, have everything. Sorry, AI is not going to help with that. So ultimately you need to have a single source of truth. Now this is important for a few elements, AI being one of it. The more information that AI is able to understand and recognize, it can pull those patterns out, it can make recommendations, it can understand what's going on.

Chris Hesson [00:28:42]:
But two, from an ownership standpoint, if you have somebody who's just storing stuff in their own format on their own computer, and again, if they leave all of their work, all of that information, you'll never find time to go through and process it and figure out and put some structure to it. So you've thrown all of your investment of time and money into that person and all of the non placements are awash. And most of the time recruiters spend is not on making placements. We love it. That's what we want. I wish every call I ever made results in a placement, but it doesn't. There's so much value in the things that don't directly lead to a placement, but indirectly lead to future revenue, future relationships. So having a single source of truth, that's going to drive.

Chris Hesson [00:29:26]:
I mean I tell our firms if it's not, clearly it didn't happen. And that mentality has to hold true. What is your source of truth? What is that repository that the information goes into as AI continues to evolve, that is going to give you the ability to leverage that data into a.

Kortney Harmon [00:29:42]:
Better understanding, use it for more. I love that. Obviously the concept of agents is more prevalent than ever. Automation. It was automations for years. Generative and now agents. I've done a lot of talks about finding the right tool sets and the right agents to support. And again that question comes back to I can't lose a human element.

Kortney Harmon [00:30:02]:
So if we're talking agents, what should someone operationally think of where I add agents into my process? Is it discovery? Is it, is it interviewing tools? Is it. I don't know. Give me your thoughts. And I know this is your and my thought compared to everyone else. And everyone's instance can have their own needs, but what should someone be looking at to where AI could benefit their processes but not take over their roles?

Chris Hesson [00:30:26]:
I think a lot of this will depend on how your firm operates, what level it operates, what type of recruiting you do. So what's going to hold true to someone who's doing day labor Staffing is very different than fully retained C level executive search. I think a general rule of thumb I've seen is the higher you go, the more important that personal touch is. I can't imagine a CEO of a Fortune 100 sitting down to do an AI screened interview. Not going to happen. Entry level person going to go somewhere else. Sure. So this is going to be very different and something to keep in retrospect, but knowing the types of searches you work on, knowing the type and level of people you deal with, what do they want, what do they value, what's important to them? And how important is that human element process? And how do you balance time spent having that relationship building activity, verse volume? So the higher up the food chain you are, I think we're going to see more of that quality over quantity.

Chris Hesson [00:31:28]:
And that's just kind of a natural part of it. You're higher up in the pyramid, there's a smaller subset. You have to differentiate yourself. But I think that differentiation here is going to be key because this technology is so prevalent. A lot of low end recruiting firms are just going to use generative AI, spam out high volumes. I think there's going to be a pushback on that.

Kortney Harmon [00:31:47]:
Yeah.

Chris Hesson [00:31:48]:
So I would see that factor comes in. I'm using AI to identify the right people, how to communicate with the right people. But it still needs to be a human doing the communication and the messaging behind it needs to have that human touch. Your goal in any voicemail you leave, any email you send should always be you want to talk with them. How do you drive that conversation? How do you ensure you can actually get on whether it's a video call or a phone call, how do you get to build a relationship and understand where they're coming from and where they want to be.

Kortney Harmon [00:32:19]:
I love it. So you said discovery, like the obviously finding the data, helping you do that faster. And I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this out loud, but there's another concept of agents for us that's coming very soon is insights. So think of that. Depending what you call it, the person, if it's an intern, an Internet researcher, someone that's going to find if Chris changed a job, what his new contact information is, what his new title is, emailing a role. But think about those things being done on the back end. Again, I, I'm able to get data at my fingertips, but it's done while I'm sleeping. You talk about manufacturing or day labor.

Kortney Harmon [00:32:54]:
I see a lot of those obviously still using chatbots, they're using interview tools, they're picking up post that vetting process because there's such high volume. So I think there, there absolutely is two lines in the sand on what side you're on, but I think everybody's KPIs is going to be changing for the fact of what does good actually look like coming out of this post AI era?

Chris Hesson [00:33:17]:
And I don't think there will be one hard and fast rule for it. I think it'll also be driven by the state of the job market. I mean today we're in a period where there are far more candidates than there are jobs, which means candidates will need to jump through more hoops. They're a little more understanding because there's also a little more desperation. Now the exception why I think the discovery piece and insights become so important is, you know, if you look at most organizations, there are people doing that job who are currently employed, who are doing it a very high level who are not actively looking. So when you pick up a new search, are you getting the best of someone who's actively looking or are you getting the best person for the role? And that for me enables you as a recruiting firm to shift. You're not a company just posting a job and seeing who will apply. You're able to go out there and say who is actually the best at doing this? Let me bring them to the table.

Chris Hesson [00:34:10]:
I think that is the human piece AI is not going to be able to replace.

Kortney Harmon [00:34:16]:
I love that. Again, sniper versus shotgun. I mentioned metrics because obviously from our coaching past, I do love them. How are the most successful organizations measuring recruiting performance now again, I know it varies per industry, but what metrics matter in an AI driven operations that maybe didn't before or did then and don't now?

Chris Hesson [00:34:37]:
Yeah, I've seen more firms tracking conversations as opposed to outreach attempts in addition to effectiveness. I mean, the concept of ratios I think hasn't changed a ton and I think that is still a great indicator. How many client submittals does it take to get to a first interview? What's that ratio from first interviews to offer or to placement? The more I think we push there, we can understand. How is recruiter A different from recruiter B? Where are they driving efficiency in their process again, where do they need maybe a little more coaching? Where do they need some better support? Are they finding the right people and then diagnosing and what went wrong? How do we adjust this so that conversation tracking less? How many emails did Kortney send? How many phone calls did she make? But how many. How many new people did she talk to today to this week? How many new relationships are we now fostering and continuing and what happens with that? A relationship isn't just a talk once, it's building something beyond and starting to drive and move that forward.

Kortney Harmon [00:35:37]:
I love that. I had another conversation yesterday, so I'm going to switch this and I don't know if you have any stance on this at all. So I heard about a software that was implementing AI and agents, but before they could get to those AI agents, they had to purchase two other things and do an implementation and add two other implement. Like there was just a snowball effect of wanting to move forward. So that brings me to my question is are you seeing anything that people should be aware of in AI with vetting new tools, things that they should think about before they pull a trigger or questions they should ask because I don't know what I don't know. Does that make sense?

Chris Hesson [00:36:16]:
Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at AI and where it's really pushed and one of the benefits it brings long term is ideally not needing a steep learning curve. Again, you don't have to go through and create dozens of pages of Boolean strings you're tracking. So the benefit is there in the time savings. So anytime you're evaluating or look at an AI tool, what is your time investment to set it up and begin using it? And then what is your ongoing time investment to leverage the tool? And how does that compare to what is the tool doing for you to free it up? So when we look at that AI concept, the whole driving force, especially around an agent, is we now have technology doing work behind you or for you behind the scenes. The difference between that and automation is Automation is just kind of doing the same set concept over and over and over again. AI, it's actually being a little creative. It's doing things a little differently each time. It's trying one thing versus another.

Chris Hesson [00:37:12]:
It's why if you take our Discover tool for example, I might run the exact same, you know, give it the same type of prompt. It's going to give me a little different context, one try versus the other and it's going to learn what is more effective. What do you like to see better? So if we look at this, where does it save you time? Always frame everything in reference to that roa I from a time saving standpoint. And how does that compare to the the dollars and hours you have to invest?

Kortney Harmon [00:37:39]:
It's going to be an ongoing challenge for many people as they figure out what is important, how are they measuring and just something to be very aware and cognizant of. So Aaron Elder here likes to talk about the idea of AI being able to help us solve strategic recruiting challenges. And you and I are very fond of the idea of consultative conversations that impact the understanding people. Do you think AI is going to play a role in helping solve those strategic recruiting challenges? How does that play in? How do you use AI to help you be different and stand out versus be status quo and just do faster? Because do faster is not the only thing we want.

Chris Hesson [00:38:20]:
Yeah. And I think that strategic component is important. If you look at it, none of your clients want to pay you a fee. They don't. If they could do it themselves, they would. If it was something that was easy, faster, cheaper for them to do. Of course they're going to do that. Companies generally and very regularly evaluate their agency spend, their recruiter spend, how much are they spending and how can they cut that down? Because they don't like writing you a check.

Chris Hesson [00:38:48]:
They don't. So the question is why do they still have to write you a check and how is that going to change? So a good recruiting firm is not just an order taker and you can start to use AI not only on that candidate side of what's the right candidate, but I would start looking and as we get more data and more volume of data and as AI continues to grow and expand, getting better insight into what's the client really trying to solve. What are the challenges here? Why didn't what they did before worked? Maybe why are they seeing higher turnover? Some of the most successful firms I work with, they don't view themselves as recruiters. They're business consultants. They come in and Say, what are you really trying to accomplish? What is your goal here? You think the solution is hiring somebody that does X? How does doing X solve the problem for you and why? What are the roadblocks to that? I know with many of the clients I had, most of the roadblocks were their own internal roadblocks that they threw up. They didn't even realize they're doing it. But their process was breaking things, their management style was breaking things, their comp package was breaking things. Let's start to use AI to actually understand and diagnose why our clients need us and what's the value.

Chris Hesson [00:39:58]:
You can come in to really help fix things, and candidates are often the solution. But you shouldn't just be taking order and saying, hey, go find this, because that might not be what actually solves your client's problem. So I'm really excited to see how AI expands beyond into our business development, our understanding of jobs, our understanding of clients. You know, it's not just a sourcing tool. It's not just the recruiting side of the desk we're focused on. I think that business development, client side of the desk, AI is going to open that up and we're going to see some really revolutionary concepts come out.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:32]:
And this whole conversation makes me think, do you remember the key account development course at mri?

Chris Hesson [00:40:36]:
Yes.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:37]:
It was one of my favorite classes to teach because I'm going to name drop Vince Holt. Literally just text me while we were on this call. I went out to Seattle to do stuff for him. And it was, literally, it was that conversation and he had such senior recruiters. And I'm like thinking about that and I'm like, they love that course. And the whole concept of that course was having different types of conversations, getting different types of resources, understanding where they are, understanding those decision makers, but amplifying it, challenging their questions. And then I'm like, oh, my gosh, if I could use AI to put in all of their challenges and then apply it to a different client, what other information could I glean from that? Such a deeper conversation. Now I want to go revisit all of those things after we're talking about all of it, but I love it.

Kortney Harmon [00:41:17]:
I can't wait to see where it goes and how it changes the top level of our industry. Because it's going to be to a new level that the top performers are going to be even more premier.

Chris Hesson [00:41:30]:
Absolutely.

Kortney Harmon [00:41:31]:
Okay. We talk about, there's a big talk around the concept of static systems, like two concepts of living platforms. So think about those systems that Just functionally work on their own in a silo versus ones that are eating, sleeping, breathing, working well with integrations with other systems. I think it's a mindset shift for recruiters to have to think about that because so oftentimes we're like well this does this, this does this. How do we help our industry and the people that we work with think more of living platform, making sure things talk, making sure I see data to understand data can't live in silos, that it has to work together. How do we help our industry make that shift to a living platform versus that static system?

Chris Hesson [00:42:15]:
Yeah, I think, you know, the recruiting industry is unique in that, you know, none of you went to school for recruiting. Nobody had that college level training course in it. You fell into the industry like everyone else did. And at the same point there is no formalized continuing education unless you're part of NASA or some larger organization. So I think we're seeing those types of organizations start to lead the charge and something that they've done. I would like to see more firms get involved with not looking at themselves in a vacuum and having better tie ins to other organizations. It's only going to benefit everybody. Think of how many times that you as a recruiter or you as a recruiting firm get lumped in with all of the bad, terrible recruiters that are out there because somebody else spoiled it for you.

Chris Hesson [00:43:00]:
Find other firms to work with, find other organizations, associations to be a part of. I think the stronger and better we get as an industry as a whole, the easier it's going to be for the individual. Now the inverse of that is again we all know and I'm sure you've run up against competitors and recruiters who do things they shouldn't do and leave a bad taste in clients and candidates mouths. I think AI is going to make their jobs more obsolete. The types of things that AI can do that those recruiters, the value they are bringing a company can just get an AI platform to do the same exact thing that type of low end recruiting firm is doing. So this just drives me back to operations is going to be more important. How do you drive and have strategic internal operations? And two, what is the human element you are bringing? Because if you are not bringing anything on a human element, why does a client need you? Why wouldn't they just get the piece of software?

Kortney Harmon [00:43:54]:
Not wrong. Let's go one step further. How can we future proof our teams? So when we're helping organizations prepare for what's next, what can we be telling our recruiters to focus on or continue to develop or keep their eye on. Because AI is the lowest intelligence it is today. It's only going to continue to grow and learn and we're the only way to go is up. So how do we help these people in our industry? Future proof what their teams and their jobs and their clients are seeing for the future.

Chris Hesson [00:44:24]:
Yeah, I think the relationships is hands down number one. And for those of you who've been in this industry and seen the market cycle up and down, those long term relationships are the ones you can always continue to go back to. When a client, they know you and they trust you and they understand the level of work you deliver and they understand how you operate and you reflect them in their organization in the best light and similarly the candidate knows you have their best interest in mind. You're not afraid to tell them no, this isn't a good fit job and here's why. Let's pivot and let's look somewhere else. That human component is going to be the unique factor because that is something by definition. AI is not. It is not human.

Chris Hesson [00:44:58]:
It can't be and have that human component. So those relationships are going to continue to drive your business because the things AI can do, I think just like when with the proliferation of, you know, monster and these job boards and technology, the firms that have the lowest effort, kind of low hanging fruit tech is going to take that over. Yeah, your clients are just going to buy that software, they're going to use that tool, they have access to AI as well. What are you doing that is different? So I think constantly understanding what are your clients doing? What are you bringing to the table that's above and beyond what they can do or purchase or manage on their own. That is always going to be your lifeline to success.

Kortney Harmon [00:45:39]:
Okay, my last question. If you had to predict and you had a crystal ball and I know you don't, what do you think recruiting is going to look like two years from now? Based on what we're seeing today, two years from now?

Chris Hesson [00:45:50]:
I think if you look at the pace that AI has changed, I think we're going to see a large number of tools come out, especially that play to those low hanging elements. I think the first thing we're going to find is internal TA departments are going to get cut. So I don't think the biggest impact initially is going to be on recruiting firms. I think internal TA is going to go the way of the dodo. Over the next two to five years you might have a single TA director and maybe they're managing a handful of different tools and working with a handful of agencies. So number one, TA gets cut. Number two, I think those low hanging fruit that are just finding open job postings, spraying out candidates, that's going to be phase two. So I think to some extent there will be a very, there will be a large amount of consolidation that will start to happen and you'll find that it's the firms that are playing at the strategic level.

Chris Hesson [00:46:45]:
They are coming in consultative, they're providing value beyond. Here's a resume that is going to be where the future of the industry heads. So I think it'll be really interesting to see kind of how that begins to shift. But again, my, my crystal ball is you're not going to be the most impacted. Your enemy inside in corporate. Those will be the ones who are most impacted and you'll actually have less involvement from TA and internal recruiters.

Kortney Harmon [00:47:10]:
Well, we'll come back in a few months and we'll test that water and we'll retalk about this. So I love it. Chris, thank you so much for taking your time and sharing your insights and all the work that you're doing over here to help recruiting teams actually succeed with AI and not just adopting it. So before I leave everyone go, let me leave you with this thought. Chris mentioned that AI isn't just changing what recruiters do, it's changing what makes recruiters valuable. It's not just enough to add AI to your tools and your workflows. The recruiters and organizations that are really going to thrive in this post AI world are the ones who are fundamentally rethinking how recruiting gets done. So whether you're individual contributor trying to level up your day game or trying to lead in your position and your organization into the future, remember AI is a tool, but a strategy and implementation and that human touch is still what always wins.

Kortney Harmon [00:48:03]:
If you're our listener and maybe this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to hear about your own AI recruiting experiences, both the struggles and the wins. And I also want to tease out we're having our own Little Mini AI Summit. Two half day sessions on August 27th and 28th. We'd love if you join us. And Chris is actually going to be showing some of our agents with us. So I am so excited to be able to share that in some wonderful speakers. We'll include the link in the show notes here. But until next time, have a wonderful day and see you soon.

Kortney Harmon [00:48:36]:
I'm Kortney Harmon with crelate. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Industry Spotlight, a new series from the Full Desk Experience. New episodes will be dropping monthly. Be sure you're subscribed to our podcast so you can catch the next Industry Spotlight episode and all episodes of the Full Desk Experience here or wherever you listen.