The Wrap #13: Standing out at HR Tech

Mike Wood
October 1, 2024
•
5 min read

I'm a little late to the recaps on LinkedIn, but last week marked my 10th trip to HR Tech. At my first event in 2013, I was brand new to the comms team at Globoforce (now Workhuman) and was amazed at the sheer amount of vendors in the expo hall and the numerous happy hours both inside and outside of the conference. I also remember feeling lost among the sea of vendors who all seemed to make the same promises. All the messaging seemed to blur together.

But that was 2013 and we've solved that issue, right? Wrong. In 2024, the expo floor is still a sea of software all singing the same song just with "AI-powered" elevated from the background. These are just a few of the booth taglines from the floor this year.

Businessolver - Benefits technology, powered by people.

UKG - Our purpose is people.

Eightfold - Talent-centered AI. People-first approach

Paycor - Empowering Leaders, Empowering You

Dayforce - Global people platform

ADP Assist - Easy. Smart. Human.

Paradox - The conversational AI assistant helping global companies spend more time with people, not software.

Deloitte - We make work better for humans. And humans better at work.

This isn't snark. I really like a lot of these. You have to be making your software for people and anything AI should empower those people, not replace them. I think Deloitte summed it up perfectly - they are making work better for humans, and humans better at work. Simple but clever.

If you are a vendor in the space, you have to be able to stand out. I'll make a shameless plug and say that I would love to work with vendors to help them refine their GTM messaging strategy and get them in front of the right industry contacts to help them grow. I was able to talk to a few vendors in Vegas, but if you are interested, I am available to consult. Just shoot me a message.

A few shoutouts before I get into this week's Wrap.

This being HR Tech week, there were tons of announcements that went out. These are the ones that caught my eye.

This week's Wrap features a hopeful end to Pawn Stars salary negotiations, candidates' comfortability with fully automated hiring, equitable hiring from Greenhouse, and a personal story about a scouting skills competition. Enjoy!

New research reveals a disconnect between employer pay transparency practices and job seeker expectations

Breaking news from CareerBuilder: Companies are reluctant to share salary ranges to job applicants:

Based on a survey of 415 hiring decision-makers, the study found that 55% of employers do not reveal salaries until the interview phase. Only 8% of employers are sharing specific salary information at the outset, while 37% share a range. This year, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 80% of U.S. workers are more likely to consider applying for a position if the salary is listed.

I'm all in favor of ranges in job postings. For too long employers have taken advantage of job seekers by lowballing them with the same tactic Rick from Pawn Stars uses on desperate people selling family or stolen heirlooms. Get them to be the first to name a number, then lowball the hell out of them. Candidates don't want to be immediately cut out of consideration, so they often say a reasonable number and get cut down even more. We live in a world of transparency. Car dealerships learned it's not so easy to take advantage of people anymore when the internet came around, now it's corporate hiring's turn. Read the full study here.

More than 60% of candidates would be comfortable with AI handling the entire recruitment process

It's hands-free recruiting!

Thanks to Chris Russell for flagging this on his HR Tech Feed. Bullhorn released its Global Recruitment Insights and Data Talent Trends report last week and this stat caught my eye. Successfully navigating a recruiting funnel can be a challenge for every applicant and hiring manager with the main complaint being simply how long it takes and how many hoops you have to jump through. Yet I'm skeptical that AI should take over all of it. It should work for blue-collar trades and high-volume hiring like a cashier at a grocery store, but what if the job needs multiple skills and experience? I have yet to see anyone completely automate this as there are too many variables on both sides.

Greenhouse introduces equitable hiring

This is interesting. TA software provider Greenhouse Software is taking a page out of the Great Place To Work US playbook, introducing a certification that your company won't treat people like garbage. According to Greenhouse, "verifications are earned by companies that consistently use processes that prove they are following best practices in fairness, preparedness, respect and communication in hiring." The verification is basically based on a checklist of using the product correctly and ensures that their customers are using all of their features. Eventually, this will lead to the perception that Greenhouse is the only TA software whose customers are verifiably treating candidates with respect. It's a smart play and I'm interested in seeing how it plays out. Find out more information here.

Spotlight - The Resolute Challenge

I like to use this section to highlight some good that is happening in HR Tech or the world. Usually, I focus on others, but I feel compelled to tell you about this event I ran this weekend.

I got involved in the Boy Scouts when I was a kid and eventually rose to the rank of Eagle Scout. The closest friends I have in life came from this Boy Scout troop and a lot of those friendships were formed at our annual week of summer camp at Camp Resolute in Bolton, Massachusetts. We would spend a week living in the woods, learning merit badges, laughing at campfires, and competing in a variety of competitions based on woodsman skills.

In 2010, these friends and I wanted to get reinvolved with the troop and give back so we created a charity, Troop One Stow Alumni (TOSA), to serve as the chartering organization for the troop and raise funds to help it function. We give a yearly scholarship to any student from Stow who has participated in scouting (boy or girl) and to date we have donated well over $10,000 to kids heading off to college.

At the same time, we decided to create a yearly gathering in Maine where we would reconnect, share some laughs, and compete against each other in the woodsman skills that we learned at camp. Thus, the TOSA Decathalon was born. The winner of the TOSA Decathalon trophy gets bragging rights for the year and can bring it anywhere they please. It was at my wedding in 2014 and has been at many of our weddings over the years including the latest last December.

TOSA Trophy in 2014 and 2023

This year, we wanted to see if we could try to have a decathlon of woodsman skills for troops all over Massachusetts. At the same time, our beloved Camp Resolute had become a shell of itself following a decrease in attendance post-COVID. Sadly, the summer program is only offered as a day program and kids could not have the experience we once had.

We created the first Resolute Challenge consisting of 10 events in a competition held last weekend. I'm pleased to say we had over 300 participants and 28 patrols of kids competing as teams. Camp Resolute was reborn for a weekend with kids laughing through events ranging from the ridiculous (such as the greased watermelon relay) to important skills such as fire building and orienteering. Seeing the greased watermelon relay (something I made up and mapped out on the plane to HR Tech) come together was thrilling enough, but what really got me was the campfire at the end of the events. We had staff alumni come in and run a program of songs and skits they hadn't done in 30 years. This generation of scouts got to see what camp used to be like and we "seasoned" scouts got to relive our youth.

The Resolute Challenge was a great success and will be back again next year with many troops already excited to participate. In the meantime, I'll be thinking of more obstacles to add to th greased watermelon relay.

‍

Published
November 4, 2024
Want to have your product featured?
Sign up today and claim your company!
Sign Up