This Week, In Recruiting - Issue 145

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Open Kitchen: Forecasting 2024 in Recruitment, Part One

Happy New Year Everybody!

I hadn't realised that New Years Day fell on Monday this year, so I have time shifted the first issue of the year back 24 hours to the 2nd January, to avoid forcing people to read anything they were too hungover to properly absorb 🤣

It's an annual tradition that every year we kick off Open Kitchen with a forecast of what I think will be happening in recruiting in 2024. I make the 20 predictions (see below) and will discuss the rationale, as well as how we might be able to measure the accuracy of the prediction in 12 months time.

Of course, this is not The Simpsons, so I have no special ability to predict the future, but I will hope to explain my thinking in here and stimulate debate on the near future of our industry.

1. Employers Policy on AI usage by Job Candidates ⬆️ 200%

Some of very earliest demonstrations of how generative AI might be used were jocular experiments by software engineers who wanted to better navigate recruitment processes they thoroughly disrespected. It should come as no surprise that these experiments would quickly turn into real tools which help job candidates find and apply to jobs, complete application forms, schedule interviews and even pass assessments.

The current conversation on whether AI usage actually constitutes unfair advantage will give way in 2024 to more practical considerations as to what to do with exponentially increasing volume of applications from candidates using technology to scale up 'apply rate'. We're also going to have to have think aboyut how to assess candidates who are using AI vs those who do not. One of the measures will be to formalise policy at company level - whether it is pro-AI, anti-AI or somewhere along the spectrum in between - so that individual recruiters and hiring managers are not making local decisions based on their understanding of 'what is ok'.

Last time I surveyed my network here on this issue, only 9% of respondents had any kind of policy. I predict at 200% increase by EOY, meaning the same poll taken 12 months down the line will result in at least 27% of employers WILL a policy.

How do we know we've got it right? Repeat LinkedIn poll in 12 months time

2. Chatbot Implementation on Career Pages ⬆️ 100%

Candidate Experience is going to continue to be a huge problem in 2024, so it's low hanging fruit time, as employers look for a cheap, easy-to-do, proven way to try and upgrade. Since the early days of JobPal, we've known that candidates often prefer to interact with a chatbot vs a human recruiter, especially at the discovery phase at the top of the hiring funnel before any great commitments either side has been made. Yet despite the evidence, we still have very low rate of installation of chatbots on company career pages - according to research from Bas van de Haterd, who conducts an annual career site analysis where his research team literally go through hundreds of Dutch employer sites - only 8% of employers tested had a chatbot implemented on a career site. This was however, a 100% increase on the year previous. (4%!) and I believe 2024 will see it increase again by 100%. So that the same research, using the same methodology will produce a result no less than 16% chatbot installations.

This is Dutch market data only but I am prepared to use it as both proxy for the wider market and also a global benchmark. The Dutch are pretty advanced on recruitment tech, so if anybody is ahead it is going to be them

How do we know we've got it right? Consult Digitaal-Werven 2024 Career Site Report

3. Recfest, IHR, Unleash All Break Event Attendance Records in 2024

So you all know that I am a huge evangelist for in-person events and I'm super bullish on the industry events industry for 2024, which I believe will set new marks for the major conferences in the TA scene. We are living at a time when the digital world is becoming overwhelming to us, with our initial enthusiasm for the information flow transmuting into discomfort as we collectively lose trust in digital artefacts, communication channels and digital spaces. We can no longer tell what is true or not by imbibing digital information and our attempts to search for that truth just leads to more options, counter theories and plausible illusions which might be temporarily exhilarating but ultimately exhausting for our minds that retreat from the digital becomes the most compelling thing to do.

There is already evidence that we are slowing down our social media participation; and whilst we will continue to be addicted to the scandals of X and the videos on TikTok, we are learning to become more skeptical to anything anyone says online.

What else is there to go but back to in-person connections? Big events like Recfest, IHR, Unleash and the rest have become critically important rituals for the members of the community, evocative of annual potlatches where distant members come together to renew relationships, make vital new connections and share knowledge on business, the market and the world at large.

There is a truth which comes from direct exchange with other human beings unmediated by platforms, unfiltered by moderators, and unadulterated by anonymity or AI. We're going to need this source of truth more than ever, and events businesses will justly stand to benefit by servicing this need.

My own commitments are substantial, and if you are around in town in any of the places, I encourage all of you to attend if you can.

Recruiters Unite, Cape Town, 7th March

Canadian Staffing Summit 2024, Toronto, 17th April

HR Tech Europe, Amsterdam, 2nd May

EMBRACE Festival 2024, Berlin, 5th June

Recfest 2024, Knebworth, 11th July

More on the Big list - see What's Going On segment below.

How do we know we've got it right? Get a report from the event organisers

4. Head of TA ➡️ Head of People Ops (Especially in Startup)

We've been needing to expand scope for a long while. Talent Acquisition - a singular focus on bringing in external talent for headcount- is a function dependent on economic growth, and perhaps, a previous era of building company value. With Zero Interest Rate Period (ZIRP) now long behind us, and GAI stretching out in front of us, it is imperative that we expand scope and take on board responsibilities that have previously been adjacent to TA - internal mobility, employee experience, culture and well being.

The absorption of new responsibilities can be - not unfairly - seen as simply doing the work for two people for a single persons pay, but it is also an opportunity to provide wider value to the business, increase personal market value and job security. I think many more of us will make this move - some consciously agitating for it, others inheriting the responsibilities as organisations rationalise the people departments. I predict a 50% increase of people with Head of People Ops job titles on LinkedIn by EOY.

How do we know we've got it right? I'm going to ask a super sourcer like Irina Shamaeva to scan LinkedIn now and again in 12 months time, and hope that search on here doesn't fundamentally change (!)

5. Fractional C-Level Becomes Norm for Seed / Pre-Seed

One of the more understated impacts of the shift to remote was the enablement of 'fractional' working. In the before times, not only was it unthinkable for anyone (other than perhaps an external contractor) to be working for more than one employer, but it was also impractical: how could you do so if you were meant to be on-premise? The removal of the requirement for physical proximity suddenly made it feasible for workers to deliver their value across multiple organisations. Interestingly, this seemed especially the case, the more senior the role became.

The rise of Fractional CTO's and CFO's has been followed by CMO and now increasingly, CHRO and the leaders of people ops functions.

As usual, it is organisations at an early stage of their development that are most amenable to the experiment; not big enough to merit a full time resource plus typically being cash poor, the idea of having a suite of C-level on call and intermittently available seems like an ideal solution.

What is the prediction? Having at least one C-level role as fractional will become norm at Seed / Pre-seed level. 100% increase of people with 'Fractional' in their job title on LinkedIn

How do we know we've got it right? Irina again 🤣

I was going to get this up to 10 but it's clear its already too long, so get ready for a 4 part series, Part Two exposition next week.

Now out of the kitchen, onto the lounge 👇

What's in the News?

Apple Finally Release LLM

Of all of the big tech 'big beasts' Apple have been conspicuously quiet on their moves on the GAI space. They finally and quietly released some information on what they've been up in late December. As ever with Apple, this will be native and proprietary to Apple hardware, but the contours of what to expect are becoming clearer - we are talking 3D avatars, immersive experience and a merger of AR / VR with AI. Have a read of one of their papers here.

If you have any news which you think the wider market needs to know about, put into comments below on this thread.

What's Going On?

Big List of Recruiter Events to Attend in 2024

There are 100+ events in the Big List of Recruiting and HR Events to Attend in 2024 - make sure you bookmark this spreadsheet, share it with your event organiser and event going friends and get yourself to one of these this year. If you see any that are missing and should be there, please do add to the bottom of the spreadsheet - I will merge them in weekly.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep239 - Forecasting 2024 Year in Recruitment & HR, Part One, Fri 5th Jan, 2pm GMT

We kick off the 5th season of Brainfood Live with the first of a two part series forecasting the year ahead. We're going to be talking Tech Hiring, VC Investment and state of global RPO....with Amit Taylor, Founder (TrueUp), Sarah White, Founder (Aspect 43), Richard Bradley, OVP of Global RPO (Kelly Services) and more - register here

A Masterclass in Workforce Planning, Wed 10th Jan, 12pm GMT

You really should have done it last year, but if you have yet to conduct any kind of workforce planning, then you need to sign up for this masterclass with Danny Hodgson, Founder (Foresight) and Chris Rowe, Head of Talent Acquisition at DHU. How do you get going with Workforce Planning? Lets find out together - consider this a free training session on how to do it. Register here

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep240 - Forecasting 2024 Year in Recruiting & HR, Part Two, Fri 12th Jan, 2pm GMT

It's Part Two of our forecast for year head. Lets look at recruitment agency market, in-house recruiter sentiment, the state of gender in the workplace, the state of job advertising and job assessment. It's a massive show folks and we have again a stellar cast to take us through it. Kalpesh Baxi, Partner (Critical Talent), Laetitia Vitaud, Director (Cadre Noir), Pawel Adrjan, Director Economic Research (Indeed), Bas van de Haterd, Founder (Digitaal-Werven) & Emma Mirrington, Founder (FIRM). Register here

The SME Advantage: Mastering Onboarding for Growth, Jan 16th, 2pm GMT

Delighted to start Season 2 with TribePad Gro - our series where we refocus the conversation in the SMB market, where the vast majority of recruiters actually work as solo recruiters. This week we kick off with a master class on onboarding - how to do this when you are only one recruiter responsibilities for everything else? With Nikki Tarr, Head of Talent (ex-ClearCourse), Sofia Broberger, Recruiter (ex-Toca Boca) and Arielle Kilroy, CEO of DadoHR. Register here

5 Talent Acquisition Trends That Will Define 2024, Jan 16th 5pm GMT

Change of pace for me as I join our friends Pillar on this kick off webinar for 2024. Lets talk about the 5 defining trends for TA / HR - register here

How to Recruit a Python Developer, Thu 25th Jan, 10am GMT

This is one of the best ideas I've been involved with for a long time - getting engineer + tech recruiter into the same conversation in an attempt to demystify the behaviours from either side. Delighted to be hosting this next episode with my friend Rudi Bauer (MD, WeAreDevelopers), with experts Steve Coochin, (Engineer, Lumigo) and Alexandra Gyetvai (Talent Acquisition Consultant, CODE). Register here

5 Common Traits of Effective Employee Referral Programmes, Thu 25th Jan, 12.00pm

We all have ERP's (Employee Referral Programmes) but what distinguishes the great from the good? Are there any common traits on how to design and roll out an employee referral programme that consistently adds quality candidates to the pipeline? We're with experts who can help - Heleen Stoevelaar, Founder (The Referral Company), Raj Gill, Talent Acquisition Lead (BT Group) and Thomas Waldman, Global People Director (Ex-Getir). Matthieu Poupard, Head of International Development (HelloWork) in the co-pilot seat. Register here

If you have an event, webinar or podcast going on next week and want it featured on next week's newsletter, comment below with the link and event details. Don't forget to at mention me so that I see it

Who's Hiring?

Talent Associate, Zinc, London, UK

Talent Acquisition Manager (Business), Qonto, Germany Remote

People Operations Specialist, Blinkist, Berlin, Germany

Senior Recruiter, Western Union, Vienna, Austria

If you are hiring for recruiters or HR people, you are welcome to post jobs FOR FREE on the Brainfood Jobs Job Board. Use coupon code: BTCFREE for 100% discount.

Whose Available?

That's 410 members of the community. If you are a recruiter or HR person that is looking for work, join the Brainfood Talent Collective here. If you are an employer hiring recruiters, apply for a company account here, and use the code: BTCFREE to freely post jobs and search the db.

Who's Moving?

Ana Tavares joins Feedzai as Global Head of Talent Acquisition having previously led the TA functions at such tech scale ups as MANTA, PandaDoc, and Pipedrive. Congratulations Ana - wonderful to see this move!

Melanie Hayes joins Aramark as HP of HR, having previously led the People Ops for Harvey Nash, Adecco and more. Great to see friends you personally know in industry move onward and upwards. Hospitality in a super interesting place also, need to a brainfood live on this!

Paul Gulino joins Checkr as Senior Staff Recruiter for GTM. Checkr have just signed as a sponsor for Brainfood in 2024 - fully expect a charge from this crew as it brings its ID verification services to the global market.

Darren Tree joins Aramco as Talent Acquisition Advisor, having spent the past six years with OMV. Huge transformation of society going on in the Middle East / West Asia - Kingdom of Saudi Arabia leading the way. Expect many more recruiters making this move. Good luck Darren - love to connect and find out more.

Promotions to celebrate: Zoe Jervier goes up to VP of Talent at Sequoia Capital, Tom Wright goes up to Recruiting Team Lead - Trading & Analytics at Bloomberg and Ruth Jackson goes up to Chief People Officer at The Gym Group - congratulations all!

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business, and feel the wider community needs to know about it, comment below with the details and see it featured in next weeks issue.

What Are You Doing?

Not much I hope - more on your plans next week!

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business, and feel the wider community needs to know about it, comment below with the details and see it featured in next weeks issue.

End Notes

I think I am more or less 'straight in' with the year in week 1. Loads to do, mainly because I didn't do it over the Holidays 🤣

Anyways, I am rested, energised and looking forward to connecting with you all over the next 12 months.

Happy New Year everybody - hope you have a great 2024 🙏

Hung

Hung Lee is the curator of Recruiting Brainfood, and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both if you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in world of work.