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Fixing Hiring Systems with Jeff Shapiro: Scaling Without Losing Empathy
11 Plays1 month ago
Most companies think they have a hiring problem—but what they actually have is a systems problem.
In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Jeffrey Shapiro, a people and talent executive known for building scalable, human-centered hiring systems, to unpack what’s really driving dysfunction in today’s job market. Drawing on his experience across startups, private equity-backed companies, and global organizations, Jeffrey explains why hiring often feels chaotic—and how most of it is preventable.
They explore why the current market feels “cattywampus,” with layoffs, talent shortages, and misalignment all happening at once, and break down the growing disconnect between applicants, candidates, and employers. Jeffrey shares why poor process design—not lack of talent—is the root cause of many hiring failures, and how simple shifts in structure, accountability, and communication can dramatically improve outcomes.
The conversation also dives into why “culture fit” is the wrong goal, how early attrition is often a failure of onboarding and expectation-setting, and why engagement actually begins at the very first touchpoint—not day one. Jeffrey also offers a grounded perspective on AI in hiring: where it’s adding real value, where it’s introducing risk, and how companies should be thinking about it pragmatically.
This episode is a must-watch for founders, operators, and HR leaders looking to turn hiring from a reactive, inconsistent process into a strategic, repeatable system that drives better outcomes across the entire employee lifecycle.
About Jeff Shapiro:
Jeffrey Shapiro is a People and Talent executive who designs and scales human-centered, data-driven people systems for high-growth startups, private equity-backed companies, and global enterprises. He specializes in turning chaotic hiring and workforce challenges into repeatable, measurable systems that improve quality of hire, accelerate growth, strengthen retention, and elevate the candidate and employee experience. Known for building systems that scale without losing empathy, Jeffrey believes strong people outcomes come from clear design, disciplined execution, and continuous feedback — not shortcuts or performative culture work.
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Transcript
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome back. This is another installment of Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. In these episodes, I sit down with the people building, backing, and running better workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes, and my guest today is Jeffrey Shapiro.
00:00:18
Speaker
Jeffrey's a ah people and talent executive who designs and scales human-centered data-driven people systems for high growth startups, private equity-backed companies, and global enterprises.
00:00:30
Speaker
He specializes in ah turning chaotic hiring and workforce challenges into repeatable, measurable systems that improve quality of hire, accelerate growth, strengthen retention, and elevate the candidate and employee experience.
00:00:45
Speaker
Known for building systems that scale without losing empathy, Jeffrey believes strong people outcomes come from clear design, disciplined execution, and continuous feedback, not shortcuts or performative culture work.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome to Behind the Build. Thanks for joining me today, Jeffrey. Thanks for having me. Super excited to you chat. So before we dive into ah all the all the sort of related things, you know my background is in music. And you mentioned you've been on you've been to 500 plus live shows. That blew me away.
00:01:22
Speaker
Before I get into all the stuff, I have to know, best one you've been to what's on the calendar next? Oh my God. Best one I've been to is almost impossible.
00:01:33
Speaker
I'll give you a few. um Pearl Jam, Randall's Island in the pouring rain. Super memorable. um was that Was that late 90s when they were in their peak? yep Yep. Right after Vitology came out.
00:01:45
Speaker
oh okay Radiohead at Liberty State Park was epic. Anytime you could see fish at MSG, it is a life-changing experience. Very recently, within the past two years, I don't remember the exact date, Mount Joy at Madison Square Garden was a colossal shift in how like I felt about live music and an experience. It was collaborative experience that they pulled off. It was unbelievable.
00:02:12
Speaker
um Next is two nights at Citi Field. One night I'm taking the kids. We're going to see Noah Khan. um We're seeing camp at Forest Hills in Queens.
00:02:26
Speaker
a And I think we might last minute get ah tickets for Passion Pit at Pier 17 in Manhattan over the summer. Wow. Okay. But we're we're always looking at, my wife and I are always looking at like live events, live events, live events. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:02:42
Speaker
COVID hit and sports and live event gathering. Like that changed our perspective. Our motto is buy the tickets. I think, ah you know, i'm I'm here in Austin. Actually, ah Noah Kahn grew up a couple of neighborhoods over from ah from here. So that's ah kind of a neat to a neat thing. All right.
00:03:00
Speaker
um Let's start at the beginning. You've built this career around designing people systems for for companies going through growth, change, growth. You know, folks don't, ah you know, when you're 13 and 14 years old, you're not fantasizing about the world of hr So how how did you end up doing this kind of work? Like, what was the moment that you're like, this is me.
00:03:23
Speaker
This is where I i live. That's like a fun question that my community always talks about. It's never by design. Everybody's always, it happened by accident. So way back when, i come out of healthcare care operations. I come out of a healthcare care family. My father was in pharmaceutical sales. My mother ran a billing department for a large dermatology practice with 16 doctors. I've always been in healthcare. I was in healthcare ops.
00:03:46
Speaker
I was a victim of corporate layoffs. And then as I was going and looking for a new position in my own, I met with a recruiter who luckily was super transparent with me and said, hey, I could send you to my client. You could probably get this job.
00:04:00
Speaker
have you ever thought about recruiting? And I said, tell me more. What is that? It turned into, I like what you're saying. Do you mind if I come into the office for a day, just be a fly on the wall and listen to like what you and your team do that far from there. I'm like, I'm in I'm ready to join.
00:04:16
Speaker
Let's go. So I started an agency recruiting. Then I went to, i always call like the lucky stick. I turned to clients. into my employer where I was the foundational HR hire of an organization employee number 70.
00:04:32
Speaker
From 70, I took them to 3,500. When I left there, it was for my own career growth. I wanted global. I wanted more leadership. So I went from a senior manager to a global director.
00:04:43
Speaker
That was also in healthcare care on on diagnostic radiology, diagnostic imaging, mammo, x-ray, CT, ultrasound, et cetera. After that, I said, you know what? I think I've done everything I can in healthcare. care like What's next? so I looked for PE-backed fintech organizations, joined the fintech, which was a two-sided market, and again, went through another round of layoffs.
00:05:08
Speaker
At that point, I said, I put my blood, sweat, and tears into every organization I've been into. I'm super mission-driven. drink the Kool-Aid. I like love building the culture, but it's time to bet on me because everybody likes to say you're a family here, but You're not a family. Startups lay off.
00:05:26
Speaker
Large global companies go through layoffs. So I decided to bet on myself and move into the consulting side. And from there, I've been really working with SMBs, other startups, some other global organizations, figuring out, like, what are they doing?
00:05:40
Speaker
How can we get it better at the end of it? Keeping in mind your employees, your candidates, your hiring managers, everybody involved. They're all human beings. So how do we make it more people-centric? How do we make things easier for people and less of the antiquated hr the ones who always always say, no, did you dot your I, did you cross your T?
00:06:00
Speaker
HR is going to be now, how do we empower you to get done what you're trying to do properly, safely, legally? You know, you used a really interesting word.
00:06:13
Speaker
You were a victim of the corporate business. Layoffs. And and and it it struck with me. And um it's it's a good word. your Your bio says you're obviously known for building systems that scale without losing empathy.
00:06:29
Speaker
Right. I think of these words connected. Right. The the victim of corporate layoffs. But losing people you know without losing or losing. Scaling without losing empathy.
00:06:41
Speaker
And that's a very specific tension, I think, to name. and I'm curious where that comes from personally. so it's it's definitely my own experience, my own biases, knowing who I am.
00:06:56
Speaker
Again, like I drink the Kool-Aid in every organization i am in. When I'm joining an organization, like this is things people forget. Candidates are also evaluating that company.
00:07:07
Speaker
yeah So when I'm interviewing on my own and I'm looking for a job in corporate America, I'm laser focused on three things. The mission, the market, the management. I need to check all three of those boxes before I'm going to say yes, even if I get an offer. The mission, what do they stand for What do they want to do?
00:07:24
Speaker
The market, what's the product? Would I be a consumer? Is it something I would want to buy? Would I be a user, a customer? The management, the people I'm going to be reporting to and or cross-functionally collaborating with? Am I going to learn from them? Are they supportive?
00:07:37
Speaker
What behaviors do they demonstrate? Are the core values just fancy adjectives that hang up on the wall? Are they clearly defined? Are they being modeled by the C-suite? like One of my questions is always, could you give me an example of something the CEO or CFO has done in the past three months that lives a core value?
00:07:57
Speaker
like What did they do? What was the core value? How do you see that that was being lived here? i i love I love that. You know, i I think that that's... So to me, first of all, I love the fact that you talk about scaling without losing empathy. And i don't see a lot of folks entering opportunities where they are asking those kind of questions about culture and and looking for specific, concrete,
00:08:31
Speaker
tangible examples right rather than just sort of these maybe nebulous or aspirational comments right that that folks might make about what it's supposed to be like here um you know let's talk about kind of the current job market and last time you and i chatted we had an interesting conversation about this you know it's been um A little bit of a strange one, right? There's there's layoffs in some places.
00:09:00
Speaker
The word I keep going to when I am coaching either job seekers or current employers is cattywampus. It's like the only word I could think of to describe what's going on the past three to five years at this point. It's it's now being reported on in major media outlets, but it has been felt and just quietly ignored or not talked about for upwards of four to five years at this point.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would agree i would agree with that. You know, i think there's some places where, you know, you're seeing crazy amount of layoffs. Right. But there's also talent shortages in others. Right. There's, you know, one of the things that you had brought up. Right. You have candidates ghosting employers. You have employers ghosting candidates. Right.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, talk talk to me about the state of of what it is today. I have so many controversial feelings on all of this. So the the one I'll stand on my soapbox on is candidates ghosting employers.
00:09:59
Speaker
That's their choice. Can it impact their brand? Sure. If you're a candidate of mine and we're getting ready to move to offer and you disappeared on me, three years from now, if I'm working somewhere else, am I going to remember that you did that?
00:10:12
Speaker
Yes. But like my pushback on being an empathetic human being is three years from now, are you the same person that you were right now? Because I'm not the same person I was a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. This is why I hate when organizations have like the do not hire list.
00:10:27
Speaker
Who wrote that? How long ago was it audited? 10 years ago, somebody abandoned their job when they were an entry level person. 10 years later, they're a leader. You're not going to hire that person because 10 years ago when they were a new entry level person, like All of that is just weird.
00:10:44
Speaker
um The other part we were going to talk about is candidates don't ghost. However, on the other side, any organization, recruiter, hiring manager, those people are paid for their time.
00:10:57
Speaker
They represent that company. Ghosting somebody that has spent time in your interview process is non-negotiable, not okay. I understand people are skeptical and scared to give direct feedback on why that person didn't get a job.
00:11:13
Speaker
They went in another direction. Like that can't answer. Cool. But can we give them something that they could be improve on for next time? Most people are afraid to do that. It's great if you can, but you can't go somebody when you represent a brand because that brand is losing a consumer.
00:11:31
Speaker
If I go through an interview process and I spend, four to seven hours and I did an assessment and a case study and I presented and all of a sudden at the end, like I just don't hear from you.
00:11:42
Speaker
You could almost guarantee I am a negative detractor. I am telling other people about that experience. I'm not going to consume. I'm not going to be a consumer, a user, a purchaser of that product at all.
00:11:54
Speaker
Whoever you are someone else is doing what you do. I'll go spend my money there. Yeah. Those managers are paid for their time. They need to give that person closure. Let me ask you about this from from your vantage point. like Do you feel like companies are are struggling to find good people or are they struggling to find good people for like roles that are clearly defined and properly resourced? I guess what I'm trying to what i'm trying to ask is like what's actually broken? there's
00:12:26
Speaker
Currently, there's a a lot. like Right now, we're in this hurry up and wait is probably the best way to think. Like how how can organizations utilize, update their tech stack, their systems, their software? What could AI do to make things better is part of what's happening.
00:12:45
Speaker
But on the other end, there's so many layoffs that when a job is posted, four to 500 people are applying for that job within 72 hours. Now this is where there there's a difference between an applicant and a candidate.
00:13:00
Speaker
If I apply to a job and I don't hear from the organization, that's not necessarily ghosting. I didn't invest my time. I didn't go through the interview process. When I get people to understand what I'm talking about, I, Jeffrey Shapiro, could apply for a job as a neuro spine surgeon 10 times a day, every day for the next month.
00:13:20
Speaker
I am not a neuro spine surgeon. I'm not qualified to be a neuro spine surgeon. It is wrong of me to think any of these companies are going to call me as a as an applicant and make me a candidate. right So I do have to have some accountability on my own.
00:13:32
Speaker
But the second someone wants to talk to me and put me in the process, now you can't ghost me. Now you got to let me know what's going on. You got to be transparent. You got to give me communication.
00:13:44
Speaker
But like what we're experiencing in the market with these five to 700 people applying, another avenue of it is with these layoffs, you have tons of people at different levels of their career.
00:13:57
Speaker
who just want to get back to work. So if I'm a C-suite and I've been out of work, I'm going to apply for a VP role. If I'm a VP and I've been laid off, I'm going to pursue that VP role. If I'm a director, a senior manager, or a really strong IC individual contributor, and I want the next step in my career, I'm applying for this job.
00:14:17
Speaker
So now you have three different levels of people applying for that one position. And then you're entering all the subconscious bias that comes up. This former chief people officer is applying for VP role.
00:14:29
Speaker
We don't want to do that. They're going to leave us as soon as the market corrects and the C-suite role becomes available. They're being disqualified without even having a chance. These people, they don't have enough experience. I'm not willing to let them learn on my dime.
00:14:42
Speaker
We're not going to call them. Where in a different market, all these people would be getting phone calls. Yeah. That's interesting. Um, the ghosting thing, I mean, I keep coming back to, you know, so painful and and what, well, you know, and really what, what it says about where trust and accountability are in the hiring process right now,
00:15:08
Speaker
um you know and it's it's you You paint this this this picture and and and, frankly, have a very good argument you know about both of those both of those sides. And I think that um you know that trust and that accountability, you know you talked a little bit about the accountability on the on the applicant's side, right?
00:15:29
Speaker
um And really trust on on the employer's side. side. um Talk to me about the reverse, you know, the accountability on the employer's side. Yeah. So now we're talking about the process.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah. On the applicant's side. Yeah. So ah if I'm an employer and I am hiring, I need to set up certain standard operating procedures that must happen.
00:15:55
Speaker
The leader of that department needs to hold that team accountable. Great way to start. somebody applies to a job, That application needs to be reviewed within 72 hours. So great, you automated your email that we've received your application.
00:16:11
Speaker
Inside of that email, lay out what the process is gonna be like. Some people are doing it really well. Hey, the application cutoff date is going to be blank. We're gonna start reviewing applications by then. You'll hear from us if there's alignment. If not, we understand we appreciate your time.
00:16:25
Speaker
But it starts right there. So if someone applies. What is the expectation of that hiring organization? How long is it going to be before they review that application? I typically say 72 hours.
00:16:36
Speaker
If someone applies three business days, you apply on a Saturday night, corporate America is not working. By close of business Wednesday, Thursday morning, you should know if you're not a fit or if they want to put you into process, set up a phone screen.
00:16:49
Speaker
Let's let's talk. Next is the interview team holding each other accountable. So I know this firsthand, recruiters are never the delay.
00:17:01
Speaker
This is something we call recruitment velocity. If you measure what everybody talks about, time to fill, time to hire, inside of that is all the activities that no one is measuring that gets to that 45 days. And the reason it's getting to 45 days is the recruiter is always waiting.
00:17:20
Speaker
They're waiting for submitted the candidate to the manager and need to hear back. finally heard back from the manager, they can't interview this person until four days from now. So it took them two days to get back to the recruiter and they can't meet for four days. Six days are lost. The recruiter was was ready to go.
00:17:34
Speaker
The candidate's ready to go. Six days in that time to fill are dead, but it's not recruiting's fault. Now they interview six days from now. The expectation is whoever's on the hiring team provides firm feedback, scorecard against the rubrics on grading this person against the job, knowledge, skills, ability, deliverables, core values within 24 hours of that interview.
00:17:57
Speaker
And they're not doing that. There again, i get it, hiring managers, they don all have jobs to do. Hiring is 10% of what they care about. But by not keeping this process moving, they're also negatively impacting that brand as each day goes on. That candidate who's a human being is feeling anxiety. They think the interview went well.
00:18:15
Speaker
They're not hearing anything. Do I email them again? Do I not email them again? If I email them, am I being desperate? If I don't email them, does it does it show I'm not interested? that It's a no-win game. So when you interview me, I need feedback within 24 hours so I can go tell this candidate what's happening.
00:18:32
Speaker
You've described your work as turning chaotic hiring into like repeatable and measurable systems. And when you walk into a company that's struggling with hiring,
00:18:46
Speaker
What are these, what are like the sign, the first signs you see that tell you like exactly what's wrong? Number one, show me how you are assessing candidates in an interview.
00:18:58
Speaker
Is it standardized? When you are hiring for job XYZ, are you asking every candidate the same question are you just going in and winging it? Because an overwhelming majority of them are not prepared for the interview. The hiring manager not looking at the resume until five minutes before the interview.
00:19:15
Speaker
They're most likely in a situation where they're virtual, they're distracted, they're multitasking, they're not showing respect to that candidate's time because they're still writing their emails while they're interviewing or they're bringing somebody in and they're looking down at their phone, answering a work email while talking to the candidate.
00:19:30
Speaker
All this stuff still happens. But if you know what the job is and you build a process on the front end, here are three questions we know we're going to ask about the tech stack. Here's three things we're going to ask about the metrics, the KPIs that this person was tracking in the past or measuring and every job has metrics. People say that every job has metrics.
00:19:53
Speaker
and Hey, here's what our core values are. Here's two or three different behavioral questions we're going to ask specific situations about our core values.
00:20:04
Speaker
And now we have a scorecard. What's the scorecard? How are we going to grade this person? Are you using a three point scale, a five point scale, whatever it is, as long as it's consistent each time, And the interview team is not talking to each other because what happens all the time is somebody meets the person first and then they go to everybody else. I really like this person. You're setting a biases.
00:20:24
Speaker
You're already designed to, ooh, the manager likes them. I should like them. Instead of really digging in on, I'm the cross-functional collaborator. I really am focused on this interview on how this person works with others.
00:20:37
Speaker
How do they resolve conflict? I'm blinded by the fact that the manager wants this. I can't focus on my thing. No one should talk to anybody until the person went through the process. You all get together. You all come with your scorecard.
00:20:49
Speaker
Now we can make an informed decision without any biases of people talking before anybody meets anybody. Jeffrey, a lot of small and mid-sized businesses, for example, don't have a dedicated like recruiting function. okay So it's either the founder, it's an office manager, somebody is handling it you know between 10 other things that they're doing. So what do leaders like without the dedicated HR bench, you know, ah what is it that they under, so you know, estimate most about what it takes to hire? Well,
00:21:26
Speaker
and so I think when we're talking like small midsize, you know, early or established, but just owning who they are, typically i feel like they're hiring off of vibes. The,
00:21:41
Speaker
can I picture myself getting a beer with this person for a happy hour? Are they going to be a quote culture fit? Like the term culture fit makes people like me and my community cringe. If somebody has a culture fit, your company becomes a mirror of a mirror of a mirror of a mirror.
00:21:58
Speaker
If somebody has a culture add, your culture is a living, breathing thing. It is constantly evolving. If someone's going to add to the culture is very different than is someone going to fit the culture. ah I really like that. Very good takeaway here.
00:22:12
Speaker
um when When a hire goes wrong, though, like if somebody leaves at three months or six months, you know, or underperforms or or, you know, never quite fits in, I'm going to use that word here, or doesn't add, then How often is it traceable back to a broken process versus just a bad decision versus bad luck?
00:22:36
Speaker
but So when someone leaves, and we're going to call it early attrition, like, well, each organization defines early attrition differently. Sometimes it's in the first 90, first six months.
00:22:46
Speaker
Sometimes it's within a year. So whatever your level is to define early attrition. Next phase, there's regrettable and non-regrettable attrition. So this is a good point. to Good to point that out. like You might not be happy about that because they were a high impact person. Like, let's figure out why they left. I mean, people talk about exit interviews.
00:23:08
Speaker
What about stay interviews? The people who are here who are performing, who are rock stars, who are superstars. How often are we going to them and asking them what they love about their job? What keeps them here? Let's do some stay interviews as well. So we can put that into the process, into the onboarding, highlight that as why people are successful here.
00:23:27
Speaker
um But attrition could be regrettable, non-regrettable. It's always expensive. So early attrition is bad. You invested time, money, onboarding, training, orienting, and then that person's gone.
00:23:39
Speaker
yeah My gut says early attrition is typically the organization's fault. They weren't set up to support that person properly. They didn't know what they were assessing. They didn't describe the job properly. So a great thing that most organizations don't do is after 90 days, check in with that person.
00:23:59
Speaker
Hey, how is it going? Question number one, the job we described, is it the job delivered? Almost all the time, you're going to hear from that person, you know, I'm really happy.
00:24:10
Speaker
Everything was great. I didn't know I'd be doing ab B, and C three times a week. I don't mind doing A, B, and C three times a week. It just never came up. No one talked about it. It wasn't part of the interview process. You're right. You do A, B, and C three times a week. We better go and update our job description for the next time we need to add to this team and add that to the interview process to talk about as well.
00:24:30
Speaker
You could always find out information if you just talk to people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like the way you frame that though. Also let's add it. Right. So the next time we have to add to this team, not the next time we have to replace you. Hopefully your, your organization is gaining consumers, yeah growing in revenue and you need to scale. You need to add headcount. You're growing. Great.
00:24:55
Speaker
Let's just make sure we do it better next time. So, so let's talk about this owner operator, right? If, if, You obviously have it there's a checklist of things, right, that people need to do better. If there's one thing that they can fix in their hiring approach right now, where do you tell them to focus? What's that one thing?
00:25:15
Speaker
The one thing is stop thinking about your company and start thinking about that person. They need to be able to themselves there.
00:25:27
Speaker
They need to be able to know what they're doing there, what success will look like. So hiring has completely flipped. It is no longer come work here. We're the greatest. We've been around for 50 plus years.
00:25:41
Speaker
Typically, most human beings are selfish. They want to know what's in it for them. Yeah. What am I going to be doing in this job? Who am I going to be reporting to? What type of tools am I going to have? What is my expectation?
00:25:54
Speaker
That's far more important to me than I'm joining this company that's been around for 55 years, because let's go back to where we started maybe 10 minutes ago. Yeah. Layoffs are everywhere. Like people used to say the stigmatism was don't join a startup. It's so volatile. That's where the layoffs are.
00:26:10
Speaker
Go look at the headlines. The layoffs are at the large global powerhouses as well. so I don't want to throw any of them under the bus, but there are a lot of them even this week that laid off as much as 11,000 people two days ago.
00:26:23
Speaker
So there is no stability. yeah This is why people are getting smarter on what's my impact. What am I going to be doing? What tools am I going to have? They're going to set me up for success. And if they're really smart, what's my internal mobility look like there?
00:26:37
Speaker
I'm taking this job, but again, I'm selfish. I want to know what's in it for me. What did my career look like here? What could I do? I'm going to join you here, but what am I going to be doing a year from now, three years from now, five years from now?
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I want to pivot slightly to talk a little bit about AI. And um obviously this is a ah huge right black box we're about to open.
00:27:03
Speaker
um You made a couple of comments earlier that I want to come back to. One of the comments was, you post a job and there might be 400, 500, 600 applicants right that next day.
00:27:17
Speaker
And one of the comments you made is, okay, well, you know if if If somebody applies, the organization should respond to them or evaluate their whatever it is within 72 hours.
00:27:31
Speaker
That's three days to potentially evaluate five or 600 applications. right Going through 200 applications a day.
00:27:43
Speaker
And that's on the average. right I'm sure there's some that where there might be thousands. So you know AI obviously is changing how companies... that I'm going to even just skip over the question, like how are you supposed to evaluate 200 a day, let alone 300 or 400 a day?
00:28:02
Speaker
And like we know that AI is changing how companies sort of, they source, they they screen, they evaluate candidates. It can do a bunch of different things.
00:28:12
Speaker
It also introduces some some problems, right? They weren't necessarily there before. So from where you sit... you know, where is AI genuinely making it better? Not just, not easier and not necessarily faster, right? Because we know it can do those things, but then there's obviously some, some complicated, you know, topics around what it might not see, right? Or what it stays buried that it's not able to surface.
00:28:39
Speaker
So where is it actually genuinely making it better? And where are those you know places that it's creating new problems or masking the old ones? So it is definitely creating new problems.
00:28:53
Speaker
There are two major litigations occurring right now on the utilization of AI upfront with evaluating applications.
00:29:04
Speaker
So it's there, it's real, it it's in litigation. Everybody's waiting to see what happens. But there are two major instances right now. The best way to utilize it is audit it a lot.
00:29:16
Speaker
That's the thing. Like, it's a learning model. Whatever you set up up front, you got to keep going back and audit. You got to change what you're doing because it's going to just start inheriting the biases from what you built up front.
00:29:28
Speaker
um I've started to see it and I like that in applications, um organizations are giving job seekers the opportunity to have their resume evaluated by AI if they want.
00:29:41
Speaker
This is also double-edged sword because I know for sure there are organizations that are just, this resume was written by AI. We don't want to talk to the person. But on the back end, inside the job description, you're requiring people have a familiarity with AI. And let's also say that company wrote the job to posting utilizing AI. So we're going to use AI to write our job posting, and then we're going deque candidates for using AI when we want candidates who are ai savvy and know how to use it. This is why we're in a mess where we are right now, which should get sorted out.
00:30:15
Speaker
But ideally, the best way to be more efficient, faster, empathetic is build it on what the role actually requires because I'll go back to picking on myself. If I apply for a neuro spine surgeon, AI could could and should dequee me as soon as I submit my application because I don't meet the minimum requirements.
00:30:37
Speaker
So that is happening. Then you'll also have people who are super savvy. All right, the job requires a PhD in org psych. On the application, it's asking, do you have a PhD in org psych? I'm going to click yes, even though I don't.
00:30:51
Speaker
So what people don't realize is if you falsify your application and you end up hired and they figure it out, you could be terminated just for falsifying your application. So you're not going to win by telling somebody you have a bachelor's if you don't have a bachelor's and the job requires one.
00:31:05
Speaker
But like upfront, those pre-screening questions are designed for that company to be able to provide closure faster, figure out who they need to talk to. Like I myself am recruiting for the owner of a small mid-sized business right now that is looking for but chief of staff.
00:31:23
Speaker
This person must be onsite in the office day in and day out. The first 50 applications I got were all international looking for H-1B visas, not here, not willing to be on site. Other people are asking, can this job be hybrid? Can this job be remote?
00:31:40
Speaker
But that's not me. This is the hiring organization. Their requirement is somebody in office. So I get it. Everybody says, shoot your shot, apply for the application. But this is why the system the system is broken.
00:31:51
Speaker
I'm going through all these applications. 300 of the first people are not in market, not local, don't have the relevant experience. Like the job seeker is not holding themselves accountable because again, they're going to shoot their shot.
00:32:05
Speaker
They're applying, go for it. This is what I'm paid to do. I can't complain that too many people are applying to my job. Like that that's my job to go through these and figure out who to talk to. For some of these smaller companies that, for example, can't necessarily afford enterprise tools.
00:32:25
Speaker
How should... you know How should they be thinking about AI right now in in terms of you know modifying or improving their own process? like What is worth their time and what's and what's just you know noise for them?
00:32:38
Speaker
i mean I don't want to pretend i am their top priority. When they're running their business, they need to triage what they actually want to accomplish as a business.
00:32:50
Speaker
what ai where they wanna spend on that. And the overwhelming odds are the budget is not calling for AI and recruiting and hiring when you're that size. It's more, know, automating the warehouse, like pickers and packers, let's automate that or yeah automating the reports and giving me my data visualization that I need to look at every day. Like that's where they really care about the AI, not I'm an organization of 20 to 25. I don't want to pay for any sort of technology.
00:33:21
Speaker
I'm just going to do this the old school way. Like, yes, they should still do that. But there's no one solution that I would say like, here's where I recommend you spend your money universally across the board on AI in recruiting talent selection, talent evaluation, because that's going to be the different level of a totem pole for every company. Yeah. um So from where I sit, i see i see i see getting people in the door is really only you know half half the problem. You've worked on retention as part of your your people systems work. Yeah. um
00:33:58
Speaker
And so from your experience, where does the engagement start to erode, right? How how early does it happen do you often see? So it's it's funny, we're going go backwards.
00:34:11
Speaker
It starts as soon as they hit that application. Ah. there's There's a very good saying that is empowering when I am working with small mid-sized businesses on this and engagement and retention and I just worked on a project down in Florida where somebody hired 18 people. And at the end of a year, only three of them were there.
00:34:31
Speaker
And what I tell them all the time is if it starts messy, it stays messy. And job seekers know that. So if I apply on March 20th and you don't acknowledge my application until March 27th, and then you don't bring me in until April 20th for the interview, then you don't extend me an offer until April 10th.
00:34:51
Speaker
Then I can't start till April 30th. And now I show up on day one and no one knows or is is expecting me. There's no onboarding plan. There's nothing on my calendar. I don't know what I'm doing. Like, these are all red flags. They're all there.
00:35:05
Speaker
I'm going to take this job. But while I'm onboarding and orienting and training, I'm already looking for another job. Started messy, stays messy. That's most of what early attrition is like. Interesting. And that's that's that's a really interesting angle that does not get talked about very often.
00:35:24
Speaker
Yeah, most people think like engagement and retention starts at onboarding. Let's really nail what their first two weeks are going to look like. When they show up, we're going to give them their 90-day plan. Their calendar is going to have meetings on it for them already.
00:35:37
Speaker
All of that is great, and some people do that really well. That's one part of engagement and retention. Let's move on to like how how we how frequently are they meeting with their manager and getting live feedback are they being coached are they being told if they're being doing a good job are they being brought in on meetings and projects so they could transfer knowledge and learn things are they working with other departments so they could learn more about the company or are they just wash rinse repeat every day doing the same thing day in and day out because i'll do that i need a paycheck But I also, I'm a human. I crave more. I want to learn. I want to do more.
00:36:19
Speaker
So while I'm doing wash, rinse, repeat, because you're not involving me in other projects, you're not having me be a fly on the wall to these meetings. You're not asking me to participate in a project.
00:36:31
Speaker
I'm going to start looking. I don't know what my career looks like here. No one's talking to me. No one's checking in with me outside of The annual feedback. Once a year, we're going to talk about what your performance was like.
00:36:44
Speaker
Let's meet weekly. Let's measure my metrics quarterly. Like I should know if I'm doing a good job or not. When we get to that annual review, there should not be misalignment between that person and the manager. They should both know what is going to come out of that review because they're meeting all the time. They're talking all the time.
00:37:02
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of talk about engagement data and employee surveys. um And one of the most common things that I hear, right, is, and I hear it from both sides. I hear it from both employees. I hear it from leaders, right? This fact that leaders either struggle to or don't turn that data into action. They don't do something about the information they 100%. So I guess the question is, is what's, what's, where's the breakdown, right? Is it in the data? Is it in who's supposed to do it? The ownership over, you know, the willingness to act? Is it something else?
00:37:41
Speaker
So there's, there's a lot. One, like a huge words matter. So when we're doing pulse surveys, engagement surveys, some people are throwing out there, this is anonymous,
00:37:55
Speaker
This is confidential. Those are two very different things. Confidential does not mean anonymous. So it might be confidential, but you're going to be able to trace back what I said to me. So how transparent am I really going to be?
00:38:10
Speaker
I'm going to fear your repercussions if I'm pointing things out. like That's going to come back to what is the culture? Is there really open feedback culture? That's probably happening if I'm talking with my manager day in and day out and I can share what my troubles are.
00:38:21
Speaker
But if you're just going to poll survey me and ask me and it's confidential and all you're looking for is to have a great company NPS to say people are happy here, but no one's really doing anything about it, that's a very different situation.
00:38:34
Speaker
The other part is when you ask people to do things and they do it and you do nothing with it, that really burns them out. So what you were just talking about, we're an organization of 150. We're going to send out an engagement survey. We're going to hope for 80% completion. And we're going to get back all this information.
00:38:53
Speaker
Great. You got back all this information. Step one, are you reporting back to everybody on what you found out? Step two, here's what you're telling us. Here's what we're going to do about it um almost all the time. Step one is not even happening. They're not even reporting back. Thank you, everybody. Here's what we found through this survey.
00:39:13
Speaker
If you're doing step one, great. You got to do step two. yeah hear you. Here's what the leadership team is going to do about it. And next quarter, we're going to report back on how we went or what we've done, what system software process we put in place.
00:39:31
Speaker
i yeah I like that that. That step two is a big one and it does get it does get dropped most of the time. i um i want to sort of take a turn and and look like into the future a little bit. you know looking Looking ahead, i'm curious your thoughts on you know Shifts in hiring and talent strategies that maybe you think leaders need to like start preparing for now. like Where do you see this this market going with new technological advances, um you know with with the changes that you've seen and in hiring and and retention?
00:40:08
Speaker
yeah Not in five years, like now. right what where What do they need to be preparing for now that you think is going to be coming up? So if I'm a job seeker, I need to show on a resume and display in my interview, I possess a growth mindset.
00:40:28
Speaker
I am always willing to learn and do new things because on the organizational side, a lot of organizations are embracing lean operations. It's not just the startup world anymore. This is why we're seeing layoffs. This is why organizations are reporting record earnings, but fewer employees.
00:40:45
Speaker
because AI is gonna automate, they need people that are going to be able to do more than what they originally hired for, because now we don't need to have a team of 50, we could have a team of 30, because we're gonna automate some of what 20 of those people were doing. And those 30 people that are constantly learning, constantly evolving, constantly staying in the know, are gonna be the ones that are touching multiple things. They're gonna be in data analytics and customer success.
00:41:14
Speaker
Well, because theoretically, now we we all have access to infinite knowledge. So if you possess that mindset, then theoretically, you should be able to 5x, 10x your output.
00:41:26
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things I read recently, i I'm totally going to misquote it was like, ai is going to help you. AI is not creative for your people. AI is going to help you find the people that are creative in your organization. And I'm butchering what I read, but it was along those lines. Like,
00:41:43
Speaker
I can't put AI in front of your hands, Curtis, and magically you're going to become this creative person. But if I put AI in front of you and you start to show you have creativity, your output is going to 2x, 3x, 4x because you're a creative person. and It's not going to sit there and tell you how to do your job better, but you're going to figure out how to be better at your job with it.
00:42:04
Speaker
It's two different mindsets. so So if AI continues to evolve the way it seems to be, what What parts of the talent and HR function do you think become more human and not less?
00:42:23
Speaker
Recruitment. it almost Almost no job seeker is willing to take a job without interacting with human beings. so there were Large organizations that have 20 recruiters, they won't need 20 recruiters.
00:42:36
Speaker
they won't need twenty recruiters But they're still going to need recruiters to do the human interaction outside of everything AI could figure out. AI could source. AI could tell me who to talk to.
00:42:48
Speaker
But right now, job seekers don't want to talk to bots. They want to talk to humans. So you still need humans to be the brand ambassador, to be the face of the organization. um Sure. my My ultimate fear is like going down that dark hole. is like The singularity is...
00:43:03
Speaker
not that far away where we're all doomed. yeah to have yeahroom but And, you know, there's there's there's plenty of us, right, who who once in a while wake up and feel like, you know, ah today I don't feel like talking to humans. I get that.
00:43:20
Speaker
Believe it or not, I am a massive introvert. Believe it or not. So I get me. I don't feel like talking to humans today. So i want to I want to wrap up with this question. I'm always curious, and this is um kind of a great note I like to to land on. you know if If you have a founder, if you have a business leader that comes to you, right, you only have a minute, you're on ah an elevator up to the top floor and before they walk right out, um you know when the doors open,
00:43:48
Speaker
They come to you and so ask you, they they want to build a team that lasts, right? People who stay, people who grow, people who perform. Where do they start? So what's the the single most important piece of advice that you give them?
00:44:01
Speaker
I'll go back to what we circled on a lot. The core values. What are the behaviors that are going to lead to success here? Let's make sure you're evaluating that. Because typically, whatever that hard skill is, if that person has the behavior, you could teach them that skill.
00:44:16
Speaker
You can't teach the behavior. You can teach the skill. I think all of the great entrepreneurs out there always say they hire the person versus whatever was on the resume or the skill because you could mold and teach somebody what to do.
00:44:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. you can't you can't ah You can't teach behavior. You can't teach mindset. You can certainly teach somebody. Your entire organization is built on the foundation of collaboration. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get really gron granular on the behavioral questions we're going to ask about collaboration. Let's have all these job seekers tell us about previous experiences where they were collaborating on project. And let's also keep it even. Times when they failed, times when they succeeded. Most people don't like to talk about failure. An area of opportunity, a challenge. like you You could always rephrase what you're trying to ask, but you've got to get real granular on behaviors and competencies versus
00:45:13
Speaker
This person has done this before. And a great way to give an example of what I mean is, so Curtis, you need to have a surgery, whatever it is. Do you want the surgeon that's been doing this five times a month for 35 years or five times a day for five years? Because if you do the math, the person doing it five times a day for five years has performed that surgery significantly more than the person who's been doing it for 25 years.
00:45:43
Speaker
So this is why we always coach people on years of experience is not experience level. So again, people could learn things, but we got to go back to those behaviors.
00:45:55
Speaker
You can't learn the behavior. That's a a very important takeaway from today. Thank you, Jeffrey. i appreciate you joining me today. This was fun. I love this stuff. Thank you for having me so much.
00:46:08
Speaker
Big thanks to all you watching and listening to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Please visit mustardhub.com to learn more about how Mustard Hub, to learn more about, excuse me, about Mustard Hub and discover how we can help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge.
00:46:28
Speaker
Until next time.