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Human Design Thinking and AI: How to Improve the Way You Attract and Hire Talent
25 Plays1 month ago
What do empathy, design thinking, and AI have to do with staffing and recruiting? More than you might think. In this episode, we’re joined by Jodi Brandstetter—HR consultant, Amazon bestselling author, and certified expert in both Design Thinking and Human Design. Jodi helps organizations create smarter, more human-centered talent strategies and is passionate about using AI to cut out the noise so we can focus on what matters: people.
We explore how to hire like a human and work like a machine—without losing your edge. From applying design thinking to improve hiring and retention, to integrating AI to help enhance, not compromise, the human touch, this conversation is packed with practical insights for recruiters and hiring managers seeking to evolve their talent acquisition practices.
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Transcript
Introduction to Empathy, Design Thinking, AI, and Staffing
00:00:00
Speaker
We're starting this episode with a question. What does empathy design thinking and AI have to do with staffing and recruiting? Turns out more than you'd think. In this episode, we're talking about how to hire like a human and work like a machine without losing your edge.
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to
Podcast Introduction and Host Backgrounds
00:00:17
Speaker
Staffing Made Simple, a podcast series powered by Simple VMS. Welcome back to another episode of Staffing Made Simple, where we talk about practical strategies, real-world recruiting, and how to stand out in a crowded market.
00:00:31
Speaker
I'm Casey Wagonfield, 15-year staffing vet, senior sales executive at Simple VMS, dad, husband, and occasional karaoke aficionado who still thinks he's got a shot at being discovered.
00:00:42
Speaker
And I'm Rob, your co-host, the senior vice president of growth with Simple VMS. I'm also a proud, but sometimes sad Cleveland Browns fan. It's all right. Law of average will kick in eventually, Rob.
00:00:55
Speaker
And
HR Expertise with Jodi Branstetter
00:00:56
Speaker
our guest today is Jodi Branstetter. She's an HR consultant, an Amazon bestselling author, and someone who's been certified in both design thinking and human design.
00:01:06
Speaker
She works with companies in all types of industries to build smarter, more human-focused talent strategies. And she's passionate about using AI to streamline the junk work so we can focus on what matters most people.
00:01:18
Speaker
Today, she's going to talk with us about applying design thinking and how we can hire and retain talent, something that is of great value to both hiring managers and recruiters. And we'll dive into how AI can be used to add efficiency to these processes without losing that ever important human touch.
00:01:34
Speaker
Hey, Jody, welcome to Staffing Made Simple. We're excited to learn about some things that are brand new to us and how they impact the staffing world.
Human-Centric Hiring Process
00:01:42
Speaker
I am excited to be here. i started in the staffing world, so it's like going back to the day, I guess.
00:01:48
Speaker
You're one of the few that made it out, I guess. I've talked to so many people who get into staffing and they just never leave. But you're still associated with staffing, being in the HR consultancy. But let's start from the top, because I know that, like Rob mentioned, this is new to us. So human-centered talent acquisition.
00:02:03
Speaker
What does that mean to you? Maybe you can explain it to somebody that isn't familiar with that. So human-centered talent acquisition is really where you focus on the humans in the process versus the process itself. So you have to really be mindful of the individuals that you're working with.
00:02:21
Speaker
And that's not just the candidates. That's your hiring managers. That's the recruiters. That's whoever is a part of that process. Really being mindful of what that process is for them and creating a process that works for everyone.
Design Thinking in Business
00:02:36
Speaker
So you're certified in design thinking, which honestly is something people may have heard of, but we really don't know what that means. Can you break it down for us? Absolutely. So design thinking is a methodology to help solve challenges in business.
00:02:50
Speaker
And what it does is it looks at the business lens as well as the people lens when solving that problem. So to me, it's like the no-brainer methodology for HR, staffing, anything people-related. You should be using design thinking.
00:03:05
Speaker
It is step-by-step where you take a challenge and you take the lens of who's the person that I'm trying to solve this challenge for. So you use empathy, observation to really get to know them and what they need.
00:03:20
Speaker
And then you use ideation to explore different ideas. So brainstorming ideas to solve that problem. You then create a prototype. You don't want to just go and create the process immediately after this. You want to test it out. So doing something cheap, easy, just to see, will this work or not?
00:03:38
Speaker
Test it, get feedback. And then once you implement whatever process or however you're solving that challenge, you then iterate. You don't keep it stagnant. We should not be using 1985 staffing processes today, right? We should have been always iterating them, always involving and changing.
00:03:56
Speaker
And so that's one of the big pieces design thinking does is makes us think about how can we continue to improve something instead of just letting it stay stagnant.
Design Thinking in Staffing
00:04:05
Speaker
And I'm surprised, Jody. I mean, truly, this is a topic that's new to us, but that I don't hear this more from staffing agencies because in a nutshell, it's a problem solving approach that focuses on people first, right? And that's the business that they're in.
00:04:19
Speaker
One of the nutshells of what it is that I liked that might be able to break it down for people is, you know, imagine building a bridge. You go stand in the shoes of the people that are crossing the river where they're going to build the bridge. You sketch 10 different bridge ideas.
00:04:32
Speaker
You test two of them. And then build the one that makes the most sense. Yeah, dead on. But I will say that design thinking is very much a IT t focused methodology. That's how people create apps, for example.
00:04:44
Speaker
So we're kind of taking an IT t methodology and really flipping it to an HR talent specific one. But I was using design thinking methods my whole career. I just didn't know there was a word for it.
00:04:57
Speaker
Right. You know, so to give you an example of one of the odd ones that I did, which is mashup brainstorming. So you take a completely different idea or area and then you kind of like mash it into the idea or what you're trying to solve.
00:05:11
Speaker
And so I was sitting with my recruiting team. We were trying to find sourcing strategies and I thought about the Reds caravan. So are you guys familiar with the Reds caravan? So they go to all these different cities that have large Reds fans and they meet them where they live.
00:05:28
Speaker
And so my team took that idea and said, let's meet our candidates where they
Creating Personas for Tailored Strategies
00:05:32
Speaker
live. So this was in Western New York where there's more cows than people. So we didn't have tons of resources. So instead of begging them to come to our office, we then went out 20, 30 mile radius and actually went to their hometown, sat there in their libraries or wherever they would let us sit to try to tell them about our organization.
00:05:51
Speaker
So we did that just very naturally without even realizing that that was an actual design thinking method of brainstorming. So now that we have design thinking defined, can you talk a little bit about how staffing agencies and talent acquisition can incorporate it to attract and retain talent?
00:06:08
Speaker
The first thing is the empathy observation, like really knowing your candidate and your client. So being able to create a candidate persona or a client persona where you're trying to figure out, okay, what motivates them?
00:06:22
Speaker
You know, if we go on the candidate side, what motivates them to be in their role? Why would they come to your organization? Just really kind of getting in their head to understand how you would maybe sell the opportunity to them.
00:06:34
Speaker
And then you're taking it to the next level of looking at, okay, well, what's their background? Like what job titles have they worked in? What companies have they worked in? What's their education? What skillset do they have? And all of a sudden you're really building that picture of what they bring when they're going to that organization, which is a great way to create sourcing streams.
00:06:53
Speaker
And then you start thinking about, well, where are they? Where can I find them? Where can I find them online? Where can I find them in colleges, universities or education? Where can I find them on the streets? And then you start building ideas on where you can locate them. And then from there you start thinking about, okay, so I found them.
00:07:11
Speaker
I don't know. Let's just go with LinkedIn. How do I engage them on LinkedIn? Because there's so many different ways you can engage them in LinkedIn, but what's the best way? Well, if you're really understanding the candidate, you're going to know the best way to connect with them. And that's where you start building that sourcing strategy on how you're actually going to source those candidates.
Effective Communication in Staffing
00:07:30
Speaker
So that's one very simplistic way to put design thinking into the process is really understanding your candidate But if you're on the sales side of staffing, wouldn't it be cool to do that for your clients too? Like who's your ideal client?
00:07:42
Speaker
Why would they want to work with you? What's going to motivate them to come and use your recruiters? Where do they sit? Where they hang out? How can I engage them? I mean, it can work on both sides of the fence there, which is really exciting um when you think about it. So that's like key.
00:07:58
Speaker
And then the other piece with this is the empathy. Okay. How do I communicate with them through the process? What's the best way? How am I gonna keep them engaged? We don't want anyone to ghost us. We don't wanna lose that candidate right before we're gonna place them.
00:08:13
Speaker
So we have to find the way to communicate with them that's gonna work best for them. So it really is a great way to know the candidate, know the client, and then that will help you with your process. Is that something you would say is ongoing where I mean, like every interview that a staffing agency does, they're taking those types of notes. Hey, this is somebody I really want to work with. This is how we found him. You're compiling that information.
00:08:35
Speaker
And maybe another option would be a temporary staffing agency has thousands of people on assignment. How do they benchmark that? Do they pull, Hey, let's pull our top 50 people and let's interview them and let's find out where we found them. What's important to them.
00:08:49
Speaker
Would that be a good start for an agency? I think so. The more data you can get, the better, the more information you have on your candidates or your clients is really going to help you understand how to customize that approach to them.
00:09:02
Speaker
So I would definitely do that. And what's really cool is that if you were talking to Jodi in like, don't know, 2020, my head would have been spinning going, oh my God, how am I going to get this data in a space that I'm going to be able to learn from it?
00:09:15
Speaker
Now i my head doesn't spin because I know AI is going to help me with that now. So awesome. Now I'm going to have all this data. I'm going pull it into chat GPT or whoever.
AI in Data Analysis and Process Improvement
00:09:24
Speaker
And it's going to spit out to me the common themes and threads that's going to help me understand who my candidate is.
00:09:30
Speaker
I love that. And I think that's an underused tool, ChatGPT. I use it daily. We had ah actually a sales call yesterday talking about how you can plug in what you do and what the pain points of your customers are and ChatGPT will do the work for you, right? You might have to change some things, but super powerful tool that I think a lot of people just don't take advantage of.
00:09:49
Speaker
But I love that whole design thinking. And it's certainly something that I'm going to continue to talk about with agencies. But I did want to touch on just the candidate experience in general, because I think that's where good TA teams and good staffing agencies agencies stand out when they give that good experience. and I came from 15 years in staffing and and I would tell people, go buy a $3 case of water and offer somebody a bottle of water when they walk in the doors, 25 cents.
00:10:16
Speaker
There's no other agencies that are doing that. It's a tiny little thing that just makes their experience different. Is it going to get them to accept the job? Maybe not, probably not, but they're going to remember that small thing that you did for them.
00:10:27
Speaker
So where I was going with that is from putting in an application to a company or an agency all the way to onboarding, what do you think is broken now and how can agencies or talent acquisition teams fix it?
00:10:39
Speaker
So what's broken is the communication piece to the process. Every time I talk to a candidate, they're always complaining about not getting feedback, not knowing where they're at in the process, yada, yada, yada, the black hole of the applicant tracking system.
00:10:52
Speaker
But at the same time, as a recruiter, my communication isn't always great with the candidate either. When I desperately want my candidate to return my call is when they don't return my call, right? So...
00:11:04
Speaker
It goes both ways. Communication in the process is broken. And when I started looking at design thinking, i actually did my own little challenge on design thinking on communication within the hiring process.
00:11:17
Speaker
And what I was really focused on was at the end of each step. that communication? How should we communicate at the end of each step? And what I learned from that was they didn't really care about those steps in the process.
00:11:29
Speaker
If you want to email them, if you want to call them, they're just happy if you do it. They're just happy if you let them know. But what really agitated them and what really made them not want to stay in a process was that they didn't get those updates in between the steps.
00:11:44
Speaker
So they wanted the recruiter to call them and say, I'm still waiting on feedback from the hiring manager. So you're still in the process. And that literally showed that candidates would stay in the process longer if you just communicated with them in between the steps of the process.
00:12:03
Speaker
And so that's a very simple fix that we can do as recruiters. It's literally just putting something on our calendar to remind us to update our candidates throughout the process, even if it's a no update, right?
00:12:17
Speaker
You can create an email signature that says, I don't have an update yet, but we'll let you know in two days. Just doing that can improve that candidate experience and keep them moving forward. Stacey Zappar, who's one of my favorite recruiters, has a Friday afternoon idea where her team literally goes through their stack of pending candidates and responds to them and lets them know what's going on, if there's an update or not.
00:12:42
Speaker
They all grab a beer and they enjoy calling and emailing and texting their candidates. And what's so amazing about that is your candidate won't actually panic over the weekend and start applying to other jobs.
00:12:54
Speaker
And that's what I was going to say is coming from staffing, recruiters will ghost people in three weeks go by and that person's probably been ghosted by other
Enhancing Candidate Experience
00:13:02
Speaker
agencies. So their thought process is, well, I better keep applying, right? Somebody's going to hire me. And if I'm not getting any communication, and I think that goes both ways from, to your point, sales and recruiting. I've seen many clients go out the back door because you're not communicating, but your competitors are.
00:13:16
Speaker
So they're giving them the opportunity. Yeah, 100%. What could a staffing agency do tomorrow to make the candidate experience more human without buying new tech or doing a full stack overhaul?
00:13:29
Speaker
I think the first thing is definitely doing the candidate persona. That is something that you can do. Very simplistic. You don't need technology for it. You just need a template. And I have a free template. If someone needs it, they can use mine if they want, to or they can just go to chat GPT and guess what? They can do it for you.
00:13:48
Speaker
But that is a super easy transition. And it's a powerful tool that you can also share with your clients to show them how you're being so mindful in the process and so focused on their ideal candidate.
00:14:02
Speaker
So I think it's a sales as well as a recruiting tool when you're using a candidate persona. That would be the first simplistic piece. And then the other one would be, yeah, looking at how you communicate and building out a little process on how you want to communicate so that you're keeping those candidates, that touch point alive, which again, you don't really need new tech.
00:14:24
Speaker
You can use Microsoft Outlook and have email signatures with various updates that you can just literally use and send very quickly. Or if you have an applicant tracking system and you have ways to communicate, you can select 10 people and tell them,
00:14:40
Speaker
You're still in the process. I have no update, right? It doesn't have to be super personalized. These communications, you just need to communicate it. So I think there's a lot of things you could be doing with your own systems today that will help build those pieces.
00:14:53
Speaker
And the last thing is if you just listen more would be great to just really listen to that client, listen to that candidate so that you're really understanding what they're looking for to really help them move forward in the right way with the position that they're looking at.
00:15:08
Speaker
I think that's something that we could all do better. Even if we're great listeners, we can all strive to listen better regardless if we're in sales, recruiting, operations. It's just something that is a lost art.
00:15:21
Speaker
So we talked about the recruitment process. Once someone's placed, how can a staffing agency continue to create a positive human experience during the onboarding and when they're on assignment and follow up through that life cycle?
00:15:33
Speaker
So when you're in the hiring process with the candidate is getting to know them better, like getting to know what they like, what they don't like, just really kind of building that relationship with them. And if you do that, then when they're getting onboarded, you can gift them things that they like. So if you know they love Diet Coke, you can send them a 12 pack of Diet Coke and say, i hope you have a great day.
00:15:54
Speaker
i used to love taking my placement candidates to lunch And I usually waited to about two weeks of being in their new role and I would go take them to lunch and celebrate and then ask them how things are going and see if I can help them.
00:16:08
Speaker
Maybe they're struggling with some communication that I can help them with. Maybe they can help me by telling me what other positions are open at that client and I can start reaching out to them.
00:16:20
Speaker
Or they might have a friend who's like, man, Jody did an awesome job for me. I'm referring my friend to you. And all of a sudden now I have that relationship because I continue to build that relationship even after they were placed.
00:16:32
Speaker
So, you know, definitely staffing agencies stay old school and keep letting your recruiters have lunch with their new hires if they can. And if they're virtual, have a virtual lunch.
00:16:43
Speaker
Send Uber Eats to their house and get on a Zoom call and have lunch and celebrate those successes with them. And then just continue that follow-up, right? Use your tools to do reminder follow-ups and check in with them so that they remember you and they continue thinking about you and what you could be doing for them or for others.
00:17:03
Speaker
I have a candidate I placed at least 15 years ago. And on his work anniversary, he sends me a thank you through LinkedIn every year. This sounds like it relates so much to sales.
00:17:14
Speaker
Are people doing this on both sides in staffing agencies? That's what we used to do. i think that your recruiter is your sales force.
Recruiters' Role in Sales and Relationships
00:17:24
Speaker
So if you don't include them in those activities, um it's a disservice to you and your organization.
00:17:32
Speaker
You got to think about the lens of the recruiter. What does the recruiter want? How can you ensure they're motivated and excited to be a part of this process? I would definitely be working hand in hand with the recruiter if I was a business development person with placements.
00:17:48
Speaker
I know we're going to touch on AI, but that could be another thing to stay in touch with them, right? Using AI to keep that recurring cadence with them. And you're right. I think all of that just leads to referrals. And I think that's the best way for an agency to grow is through referrals, right? Get people to talk about you. And and by giving people a good applying process, a good onboarding process and going the extra mile, it's only going to trickle down to help your branding and your retention rates.
00:18:14
Speaker
It's all these non-measurable things, right? All these little things that salespeople and recruiters do that add up over time, but there's no way to really tell. It's kind of the secret sauce of why some people are successful.
00:18:27
Speaker
A hundred percent. But you know, you can track it if you keep that data, right? If you keep those lunch meetings as a KPI, and then all of a sudden you remember that you placed so-and-so, you had that lunch.
00:18:41
Speaker
So you can go back and say that could have been part of the lunch conversation. So you can track them, but yeah, it's not going to be an instant gratification. It's not going to be, oh, they refer someone tomorrow. It might be three months, six months, or a year down the road.
00:18:55
Speaker
But as long as you can tie it back to that activity, then it can be tracked. I know you mentioned when somebody's placed, some things you can do to make sure that experience is good through their onboarding and and on assignment.
00:19:07
Speaker
But where does human design come into play with that once they're already placed? And how can it help maybe staffing leaders or recruiters better understand how they show up and connect with them? Yeah, so
Understanding Human Design in Staffing
00:19:17
Speaker
let me explain what human design is. i call it my FUFU.
00:19:20
Speaker
It is a self-discovery system that combines elements of astrology, the I-Chi, Kabbalah, the chakra system, and quantum physics. And what it does, it really reveals the person's unique energy type, strengths, decision-making, and life purpose. So this is outside of design thinking. A lot of people would say it's similar to like a personality assessment, but it uses very old philosophies that have been out there.
00:19:45
Speaker
But it is a valuable tool when you're looking at hiring, onboarding and retaining talent. It really helps you understand how someone naturally operates, how they naturally communicate and how they make decisions.
00:19:58
Speaker
So you understand that you're going to be able to work with that person in a better way. So everyone has their own strengths, their own communication styles. But if you're a specific type in human design, there's some commonalities amongst each other.
00:20:13
Speaker
So there's a couple different ways that you can utilize human design when you're in this place. One is personal alignment. And that's really understanding who that person is, how to build a relationship, how to set boundaries, how they're going to make decisions. So it's really, you know, kind of making sure that you're in line with how they want to work.
00:20:32
Speaker
Communication style is big. So everyone processes and expresses information differently. So being able to understand that I'm a generator. And so I'm someone who can work to the bone, but I'm an emotional generator, which means everything I do, I have to use my emotional way to make decisions. And so guess what? If you ask me a big decision today, I'm not going to answer it today.
00:20:57
Speaker
It might take me three to five days to give you an answer. And that's okay, because that's how I make my decisions. So understanding that is going to help you understand like why maybe one of your employees isn't giving you a yes or no answer immediately. like And then it also helps with team dynamics, because everyone has different ways of dealing with teams.
00:21:19
Speaker
So as a generator, everyone loves me because I'm the doer in the world. But there's this other group called projectors who are actually more leaders and literally directs the world. They can't work all day.
00:21:31
Speaker
It doesn't happen for them. But they can gift us with amazing ideas and be able to direct us in the right way. So if you understand that about your team, you may not get so frustrated with a projector because now you know that they don't have the work energy to be able to do a 12-hour day.
00:21:47
Speaker
And so maybe you should work with them differently. So it really just helps you be self-aware and it really helps with empathy. When you use human design and you go through that whole process, is it similar to like some of the other things, predictive index or some of the other types of things where it shows you, hey, here's this person's personality. And in these scenarios, here's how you can approach them.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yes. So it does. It gives you a chart. And in the chart, it gives you all kinds of information about someone. I'm going to just break it down as simplistic as I can, just so you can understand the five types. Karen Curry Parker is the person who gave me this idea. I always like to tell people where I get things. so They don't think I actually own this stuff. But if you think of a play, so a generator would be the individuals who are on set, getting the set ready to go, right? They're working on it.
00:22:35
Speaker
They're getting everything going. Then you would have a manifestor, which is the producer of the play. They have the idea and they're able to share that idea and get that idea to be created.
00:22:48
Speaker
so that's a manifestor. Generators, there's about, I think about 60% of the world are generators. And that includes a manifesting generator. And that's just someone who can also kind of speak out ideas and make them happen potentially.
00:23:02
Speaker
But manifestors, there's about 20%. twenty percent maybe. So they're the projectors that i was talking about. They're the director. They're directing the play. They're showing the actors how to do what they want them to do on stage.
00:23:17
Speaker
Okay. I think around 20% are projectors as well. And then you have reflectors, which is very small percentage. 1%, 5% of this world are reflectors and they're the audience.
00:23:30
Speaker
They are able to absorb every other person. and understand what they're doing. So it's almost like they're open to being able to go through all the places, but really they're there to experience the world.
00:23:43
Speaker
And so each one has a different way to respond, how they make decisions, how they communicate. And so it makes it really interesting once you start to learn this and understand who everyone is.
00:23:55
Speaker
And there are free ways to get your human design chart online. You can just put free human design chart What you need is your birth date, the time of birth and where you were born. And as long as you have those three things, then it will actually pull a chart for you.
00:24:12
Speaker
And a lot of times the chart feels overwhelming. You can absolutely hire a consultant and they'll read your chart for you and give you that experience, which is absolutely wonderful. And that's how I learned about it and decided to become ah certified human design consultant. But you can also just put it in chat GPT. and it'll give you some basic information as well.
00:24:33
Speaker
You talk about it as a science, but everything you just said just kind of moved my inner hippie. So it's kind of like art. So in staffing and in talent acquisition, we talk about the candidate experience a lot.
00:24:46
Speaker
How do we make it less of a buzzword and more of a reality and priority? I think we just think of it as the golden rule. How do we want others to treat us? And let's do that for them.
00:24:57
Speaker
We have such an impact on people's lives when we are in the staffing world. We help them make very large decisions about where they're going to be, how much money they're going to make, which impacts where they can live and how their families can thrive.
00:25:18
Speaker
So if we really think about the impact that we're making, we should really make sure that candidate experience is there. Like we need to make sure that we're having honest conversations with our candidates, telling them the good, the bad, the ugly about opportunities, making sure they're really thinking about this decision because it's a huge decision.
00:25:39
Speaker
have made Decisions for myself where I have picked jobs that were not good jobs for me. Take that experience and say, I don't want that to happen to a candidate.
00:25:51
Speaker
I don't want someone to get stuck in a job and hate it. I want them to enjoy it. So it really is the golden rule, in my opinion. I've never understood when you're in staffing and you make money on placing people, why you would give somebody a bad experience.
00:26:04
Speaker
That should be your top priority is giving our candidates a good experience so they tell their friends and we get more clients. Well, I want to shift gears for a second and talk about AI because it's a hot topic right now, especially in staffing.
00:26:16
Speaker
And I know you're somebody who thoughtfully embraces it, but what role do you see AI playing in the future of staffing and recruiting?
AI's Role in Mundane Tasks and Data Analysis
00:26:23
Speaker
So first off, AI, first and foremost, is a tool. It is an extension to us as an employee for an organization.
00:26:32
Speaker
so the first thing is looking at it to figure out how to fix some of those mundane, boring tasks that really don't help us push the needle forward.
00:26:43
Speaker
So scheduling interviews or providing those updates that are important but don't have to be fully customized and personalized. So really looking at it in that capacity and then looking at it on the analytical side. How can AI help us with our data to help improve what we're doing every day?
00:27:03
Speaker
those would be the two key pieces. i think we have to focus on those first and then kind of build upon that. Yeah, i like how you talk about using AI to handle the busy tasks, right? So your recruiters and salespeople can focus on revenue generating activities.
00:27:19
Speaker
A hundred percent. As a recruiter, I should be on the phone. I should be in front of my candidates. I should be talking to them, um explaining to them why they should consider this role, getting their background and experience, helping them successfully land that position. Like all of that should be a recruiter and their voice and who they are.
00:27:37
Speaker
But I don't know if I really have to do the scheduling or even some of the sourcing, being able to look at resumes, that were AI sourced for me to get to the point where I find good candidates.
00:27:50
Speaker
All of that's getting me closer to the candidate and talking to the candidate and being a part of the process with the candidate. So yeah, it's a big piece that's going to help us thrive, but recruiters have to be willing to not do the Medane anymore. And sometimes I think we like doing the Medane task, the easy task.
00:28:09
Speaker
So it's pushing us out of our comfort zones in some ways. And with the talk about AI bots, and you can just talk to somebody and not know you're even talking to an AI agent, you think that threatens recruiters and the amount of recruiters that a company hires?
Balancing AI with Human Interaction
00:28:24
Speaker
This is kind of near and dear to my heart because every time AI gets brought up, I'm a relationship person. So I like to think I'm irreplaceable, right? And I always say, i think we're going end up somewhere in the middle where People think we're going to be in AI and automation and where we are today.
00:28:43
Speaker
Hopefully the human touch will still be a part of all of that. How can an agency use AI and still make sure they're maintaining that human touch? Because at the end of the day, there's probably recruits that you may or may not get because of lack of a human touch.
00:28:59
Speaker
Oh, 100%. I think that AI can actually customize and personalize our approach to continue to build that relationship. So just to give you one example that I just talked about at a presentation was there are avatars. So I can create an avatar that looks just like me and talks just like me, which is so scary, but...
00:29:23
Speaker
At the same time, if I'm an organization and I want my CEO to welcome every single one of my new hires, and I want him to say their name and where they're working and all that, I can now do that with an avatar without asking my CEO to record hours upon hours of content for me So that just customized something and increased my human approach to that new hire.
00:29:54
Speaker
But that doesn't mean that every single human interaction is going to be an avatar. It's just that I was able to take a very specific point in a process and customize it in a way that would impact the that onboarding without impacting my CEO having to spend tons of time on camera.
00:30:13
Speaker
So there are things that you can do with AI that'll actually help your personalized approach with humans still being a part of it. Being able to create a very thoughtful email that really takes that person into consideration using AI and I send it It's helping me be more personable without me having to really figure that out in a way that's going to take more of my time, energy, and effort.
00:30:41
Speaker
Whereas I'm more excited about being on camera with them and talking to them. My email isn't my high approach need. It's when I'm face-to-face with that candidate is where I want to be me and not an avatar or a bot or an agent.
00:31:00
Speaker
But there's pieces that I know ai especially if AI knows me, which my chat should be T knows me at this point. Like when I ask it to write me an email, I read it and I'm like, yeah, that's how I would have wrote it. Thank you. You know?
00:31:12
Speaker
So it gives you that approach. But again, I'm not going just send that email to Casey without reading it first. and confirming that, yeah, that's what I want to say. But those are the things that we can be doing with AI today, but still have human connection and interaction.
00:31:29
Speaker
Well, I use ChatGPT and you're right. It does know you. I can have it do something for me and okay, now make it sound more like me. And it's amazing how fast AI has trended, especially within the last couple of years.
00:31:42
Speaker
And for agencies that are overwhelmed by it and thinking, hey, we've got to embrace AI, where should they start? What's a safe first step for them to start moving the needle? So the first
Starting Small with AI Integration
00:31:52
Speaker
thing they need to do is pick one issue or one challenge that they have that they would like to consider AI for.
00:31:59
Speaker
So just one piece. So it could be sourcing. Once you have that decision, like where you want AI to go, then pick one tool to help you with it. Don't go crazy. Don't go and like try five different tools. That's overwhelming and too much.
00:32:13
Speaker
So pick one tool that you want to try and then just test it out. Do like three positions that you usually are recruiting for and see how it works and then be able to gather information and say, is it benefiting or is it not benefiting us?
00:32:29
Speaker
So baby steps, you do not need to be using 20 different AI tools immediately, just use one. The other thing you can do too, which is really simplistic, is to look at your current tech stack and see if it already has AI that maybe you're not using today.
00:32:45
Speaker
And then talking to your vendor and saying, can you train my team on how to use this AI tool that's embedded in our applicant tracking system, in our CRM system? So either look internally to see what you have already or pick one challenge, one tool and see how it goes.
00:33:03
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that's something you're right, that people oversee. They don't know that they have the capability or maybe their tool has a capability. In staffing, that you get a big order and the office like, we're going to put a bunch of yard signs out. No, why don't you use the AI that scour the million people in the database that are already there that could be open for work and work smarter and not harder.
00:33:25
Speaker
Well, go to ChachiPT and ask, would a yard sign work for this job in this location for this type of candidate? It might still be the right option.
00:33:35
Speaker
And that's the one thing I would say, don't put our eggs in one basket. If you're going to have a sourcing strategy, have a strategy that might have some AI in it You might want to do some online pieces.
00:33:46
Speaker
You might want to go to colleges, universities to build that pipeline. And grassroots is still very important. That's your employee referral program. There's so many different ways to attract the right candidates.
00:34:00
Speaker
But if you don't think about the person and ensure that that's where they're at, it's never going to work. It's always going to fail. So in this world of buzzwords and tech and terminology, for somebody who's overwhelmed by all this, what's something that they can do to modernize their approach without completely changing everything?
00:34:21
Speaker
You know, I would definitely look at your current tech stack and just see if you're using it to the fullest. I would then start to learn more about ai So there's a lot of different places that you can get AI knowledge.
00:34:35
Speaker
So if we're looking at Cincinnati, Ohio, where we're all sitting, there is Cincy group that meets monthly about AI that you can go to. We have Cincy AI week coming up in June.
00:34:49
Speaker
There's so many amazing newsletters about AI just to learn about it. So the one I get is Neuron. And Neuron also has a free ChatGPT training. It's an online training portal so you can learn how to really utilize ChatGPT.
00:35:05
Speaker
And it's free, like I just said. So it's not going to go into anyone's budgets if you just have your recruiters go into Neuron and do that. So I would just really be starting to gather information if you need to see how AI could address it.
00:35:20
Speaker
And then I would look at the AI that you're interested in and try free trials so you can test it out. I would also talk to the AI vendors, make sure that they're using responsible AI, which means that they're testing their algorithms to make sure there's not biases that are consistently happening.
00:35:42
Speaker
And then start advocating for your organization on how AI is going to improve your processes. Well, to sum it all up, but we've talked about a lot of things, human-centered recruiting, design thinking, smart use of AI, all those things working together.
Key Takeaway on Communication
00:35:57
Speaker
What's one takeaway that you'd hope staffing pros listening today get from this conversation? That communication is the most important piece of the process. So start using it.
00:36:09
Speaker
Well, Jody, thanks a lot. That's a wrap on another episode of Staffing Made Simple. If you're listening and thinking, yeah, I need to rethink my candidate experience or you're curious about using AI without becoming a robot, this episode was for you guys.
00:36:22
Speaker
Absolutely. And a huge thanks to Jody Branstetter for dropping some awesome insight on us. Jody, where can people find and connect with you and read about you? My favorite social media is LinkedIn. So just put in Jodi and then Brandstetter. And if you didn't put a lot of T's in it, you didn't spell it correctly. So good luck with that.
00:36:40
Speaker
And my website's jodibrandstetter.com. And if you would like the candidate persona template, you can just email me, Jodi with an I at let's, L-E-T-S, Cincy with a Y.com.
00:36:52
Speaker
Thanks, Jody. And thanks to our listeners. Don't forget to check us out at our website, simplevms.com. Until next time, stay human, work smart, and like we like to say over here, keep it simple.
00:37:04
Speaker
This has been an episode of Staffing Made Simple, powered by Simple VMS, the vendor-friendly VMS.