Transcript
Speaker: everybody, welcome to another episode of the Frontlines podcast. We are a are in hot Atlanta at Workday Horizons Atlanta, live, out on the terrace, doing some sun podcasting. Madeline.
Speaker: Hi, I know this is a lovely setup here. Ron, you both look very comfortable on this couch. I feel like I'm awkwardly sitting, we're just going to go ahead. We need a pillow behind you. And we have obviously our guests with us. And so go ahead, introduce yourself to everybody. Tell us who you are, Jason. Yeah, absolutely. Tim, Madeline, thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Glad you guys came to Atlanta, yeah am my hometown here. So Jason Smith, I am the Director of Talent Acquisition for Carter's.
Speaker: So I helped to support all of Carter's across retail distribution center and our corporate hiring. But excited to be here. Nice. Very exciting. and it's I shared this before because we recorded with you, Sarah and Dave. But Carter's is like a very special brand for me because it's literally the memory I have of the very first retail store I'd ever been in.
Speaker: Yeah. And I love that. So it's one of the, I would say from a talent acquisition perspective, it's one of the most exciting things about working at Carter's is everyone has some type of tie to Carters, right? Yeah. Either you grew up wearing the product or you bought it for your kids or your grandkids or whatever it is. So it's normally happy memories.
Speaker: And we've been around, you know, this is our 161st year in business. So we've been able to hit a lot of generations, which we're excited about. Yeah. Talk to us a little bit about like, obviously you guys are a work day paradox client. You kind of do this AI transformation um and like, talk to us, like how you got to that point. Like, where were you using? What's been the impact?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. so we started, we implemented Paradox back in 2022 and we actually started in our distribution centers. kind of coming out of COVID right. And just as the job market started to open up,
Speaker: so many applicants had so many opportunities, right? And so for our distribution centers, where in PC's and hiring, we might be hiring two, three, 400 people at a time, we needed to be able to get to those candidates quicker. And so we started to look for a tool, landed on Paradox, implemented it there first. And what it helped for us to do is to just streamline the process, right? Someone applies, we wanna talk to them, boom, we're scheduling an in-person interview for them to come to our distribution center within 24, 48 hours, right? And being able to kind of turn that around And then we slowly rolled it out to corporate. So we really implemented it, i would say in full and corporate, probably in like 2023, early 2024.
Speaker: And now we've actually just launched it across our retail stores as well. So we did a pilot for some of our retail stores, about 100 stores or so in fall of 2024. And then that went very well. And now we've released it also the field. So we're excited to be able to use it across corporate retail and distribution centers now.
Speaker: If go back to when you did that, because you guys have been doing that now a few years on the pain point where it was just a matter of like the operations come and go, look, if we don't have more people, we're s SOL for the season. we have to, you have to get as people, yes you know, like that's really like that. Yeah, that's really, that was the genesis of it, right? Is really starting with, we have peak season hiring goals that we have to meet, right? As you can imagine, Q4 for us is, you know, I think 30, 40% of our business is in Q4 around the holidays. So for us, like if we don't have the employees in the warehouse in our distribution centers to get the product out, like we're not going to be planned. So we had to be able to get to those people. We had to get them quicker. Our largest distribution center is up in kind of north of Atlanta here in Brazelton. There's a lot of other distribution centers around there as well. So we also have a lot of competition. yeah So we've got to be able to get to these people faster. I mean, transparently, um we know we might not be able to compete with an Amazon or some of these others from a pay perspective. but how can we get to them quicker, right? And so that's really where it started back in 2022. That was the crazy thing. I think Josh Zekrest said this earlier today where it was like there's like data that shows like once an hourly worker schedules the interview, they stop applying stuff. Like they're just like, oh no, yeah, cool. I want that one. willing to go.
Speaker: and i And I go back to, like I have so many people that will come to me and go like, oh, how do we, i don't understand. Like it's usually heads of TA or HR. like i don't How do we get started in TA? And I'm like, well, where's your pain?
Speaker: yeah Like once you find the pain, then you can talk them into trying just about anything. right You're like, if we do headstands all day long, it's gonna help. Like, okay, we're all doing headstands. Like if they'll do anything if they're in pain. yeah yeah So 2022, this is when this started. Can you talk to us a little bit about what it was like before 2022?
Speaker: So I actually, i joined Carter's in 2022, so I can't speak as as highly from it, but I would say we have always had a very decentralized recruiting model just across Carter's in general, right? So the way that our store, you know, from a store perspective, our store managers are really responsible from DM's store managers to really driving and owning the hiring there. yeah Our distribution center, we have kind of a recruiting team base there in our DCs They were managing it. And then corporate was transparently done a lot by like really agency recruiters, things like that. So really in general, there was a decision made, which is really kind of why I was hired, right? That we wanted to build an internal talent acquisition team for Carter's, right? We're large enough. We have, you know, 12, 13,000 global employees. How do we kind of start to centralize some of this from the way that we're operating from some of the tools that we're using, things like that.
Speaker: So we implemented, Paradox started in the distribution center. We also implemented Workday in 2022 as well. So started with the process and then the technology is unheard of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, what? That's how that works? Wow, it doesn't even happen. That's amazing. And you've talked a little bit about impact that you've seen since using Workday Paradox.
Speaker: And you talk a lot about efficiency yeah and time savings. Is there anything else that's really come up to you, even if it's more of kind of quality metrics? Yeah. So I think that that's kind of like the next chapter that we're looking at is really, how are we kind of tracking some of our quality to hire? Right. Um, as far as it's great that we can hire people quickly, but what's the retention where they also like, what are, where are they coming from? Where are they, how are they applying to us? Is it indeed, is it our career site? Is it LinkedIn? Like how are they finding our jobs?
Speaker: And then what is kind of that retention look like? So it's something we're starting to lean into a little bit more and really starting to try to peel the onion back a little bit to see like where are best candidates coming from and then also kind of what's keeping them here. yeah Jason, when you think about like you have all this AI stuff that's come up in the last 24 months, large language models, agentic, you guys started your AI journey before that. Has that made it easier then for your company to kind of like transition into this AI world because you're like, oh, you've been doing ai already.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think just in general at Carter's, like it does feel like from a TA perspective, we've kind of been at the forefront of some the AI and and automation tools. And so I do think that we have kind of that case study there already of saying, hey, we've been doing this since 2022, right? So even with all the new tools that are coming out and everything, I think we're proud to say from a TA perspective,
Speaker: we've been doing a lot of this. Now there's still, there's a lot of exciting stuff that's constantly coming out, right? But I always feel good about the fact that we've been at the forefront of some of this. Now, i always wanna make a point to say that the human element is still a part of it, right? There's so much talk on social media and just out in the market about, oh I'm, you know, AI is rejecting my application.
Speaker: I want to be clear from the way that we utilize AI, at least at Carter's, no AI tool is ever making a hiring decision. Yeah. Meaning you are never being dispositioned by a tool, right? Like it's not no matter what you answer yeah on your availability or things like that, someone is still looking at it and then ultimately making the decision. So i always try to separate that because there is a big misconception out there. Well, no, it's a giant misconception, not only with mass media and candidates. Like if you were to ask 100 candidates if they think they've gotten disposition by AI, it's like upwards of 85% think they do. And in reality, if you actually look went through every single apply they had, it would be more like 2% or 3% might have. right yeah Not even then, right? It's still AI might have like ranked them and then somebody, a human actually said, yeah, okay, fine, we don't want these. Like it's shocking to me like how people don't understand what's really happened, how the sausage is made. basically Well, the media loves the story too. Like so many articles have been written. and The robots are controlling the world. Nobody's making a decision. You can be hired in 24 seconds. And it's like, no, that's not how it works. Well, one example that I love to give. So part of my role too is managing our college hiring programs, right? In 2024, or actually I guess now our 2025 class now, we had 20,000 applicants and we hired 70 people. Wow. 20,000 applicants. So I always tell people, I'm like, it's impossible no matter how many resources or recruiters we have. We have to utilize tools to help us get to the candidates quicker because no recruiter has time to go through many applicants. Wow.
Speaker: That's kind of what the job market is. And I think it's, you know, it extends to that frontline recruiter, right? And those high volume spaces. So that's just kind of what it is. And so, yes, we utilize ai and automation to help us find people better, but ultimately, or quicker, I should say. But ultimately, they're not making the hiring decision. Yeah, I think that's one of those things where we go, like, it's again, it's it's ah it's a reality of TA for those of us who worked as practitioners in that is like, if I have 20,000 applicants and I have this many people,
Speaker: Most of those applicants are never going get looked at. If I if i layer in some AI, I can get 100% of them being looked at, yeah giving them a chance. yes And then some of the people that maybe are the best candidates that never would have, they were unlucky. That was it. That was like that was a strategy for TA a for decades. It was like, lucky, unlucky.
Speaker: You're like, that's not like, how are we thinking that's better than ai Right. And then we have people in our industry though, that will argue that AI is the death of TA and you're like, no, maybe for the first time there's a fair shot for everybody. Yeah. yeah They're coming around a little bit, but it's still surprising. Yeah.
Speaker: I want to about the college recruiting for a minute. I love that this is a focus for you because it's changed so much. Like I'm curious if you're seeing it shifting back. Like I know it was all like in person, you'd have to, really make sure that you are attending these career fairs in person, the brand, like going up and grabbing student, giving them a hug, pulling them in, talking to them. then it's all shifted since COVID and you had to do more brand and focus on like small, you know, getting at the grassroots and virtual events. Where are we at now? Like where is it shifting back?
Speaker: It is shifting back. yeah I think to the in-person is becoming more important than ever. I was fortunate enough to be at the NRF event in New York at the beginning of the year and part of the executive program and kind of mentorship.
Speaker: And one of the things I was telling the students and there's so many students out there, they're like really To me, I was like, wow, i don't I don't think I was this smart and kind of on top of it at that age. But they're really impressive. And what I was telling them is I'm like, this is how you get noticed. So by going to some of these events and events in person, right, going back to that 20,000 number, 70 people get hired.
Speaker: A lot of those people that we hired, we had met in person. you met Yeah, it's a relationship. They had come, they had shook our hand, they came to our table. We met them, they made a connection. So then when that resume came through,
Speaker: Oh, I recognize that name. i remember this person. They were impressive. So it is starting to go back. i think it's more of a benefit, honestly, to the candidate and to the student. to have those in-person events if they take advantage of them.
Speaker: Yeah, agreed. Yeah. I think that's, when you go extend on that, because I think when we think about using AI automation, did like, you obviously can reduce the total number of teammates, but what we like who we want to say is like, where does the human layer in? So when you guys think about that, where do you want your team to spend more time with the actual candidate?
Speaker: And what does that look like as you add in? so you're gaining capacity, but the same time, now you have more time. What does that turn into? Yeah, it's a really, it's a good question. So the way that we've kind of thought about it at Carter's is we want to kind of design our process and say, okay, what are the points that we want that human interaction? yeah And then how can we just automate everything else basically, right? yeah So what we've done is so candidate scheduling, interview scheduling, all that, that can all be automated. That's so easy. That's such a manual task yeah for a recruiter. Take that off their plate, right? What I want our recruiting team to be able to focus on is, spending more time with the candidate, really screening, understanding what are their drivers, what are they looking for, what's going ultimately keep them at Carter's, all that type of stuff. And then how are we kind of really then managing them through the process? Also, I want us to get closer to the business, right? So we always talk about becoming less of recruiters and more as talent advisors from a TA perspective. And so that's one thing too, right? if
Speaker: my recruiter is spending less time having to screen resumes and manually schedule interviews and all that type of stuff, they can spend more time interacting with the business and being a true business partner to understand what are our goals, what are we, you know, what are we kind of ultimately going for? now Sorry. The heat is getting The heat is melting our microphone. Me too. So I think that ultimately that that that's where it allows kind of more time is really for the ability to become more of that true business partner and spend more time with the candidate and understand the drivers from both sides.
Speaker: Yeah. I do think that's critical. Like we were talking with Sarah Valvoline and like she was talking about how they've kind of got this process down where the recruiters have such a strong relationship with their hiring managers. The hiring managers ultimately are making the decision, but they're not actually interviewing. theyre yeah They've gotten to the point where, and I'm like, that's really rare. mean, because you know, like you have to have both that hiring manager and recruiter have to be so lock and sink together. yeah to get that to happen.
Speaker: But ultimately that's the time that's better like value added. I don't need my hiring manager spending half their week or 25% of their week interviewing when somebody else can do that. And the delays i mean that come along with that. It's just it's way too time consuming.
Speaker: um So when you think about, like you've talked a little bit about the candidate, right? Like you're hiring maybe differently than other frontline hiring is yeah happening where there's sometimes an expectation. We only want somebody for a couple of months. Sometimes it's seasonal. Sometimes it's just that's yeah that's fine if this is a launch pad for them to go somewhere else. um When you think about candidates' expectations around AI, like you're embracing it, you're figuring out where the human steps in or where humans are making decisions. yeah How are candidates' expectations changing and are you collecting candidate feedback on how AI is being used in the process?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. So I think for us, what we have tried to do is we want to walk that fine balance, right? We, one of the things that honestly separates us at Carter's is our culture and our people, right? It's one of our biggest selling points. The fact that we have been around for 161 years and that we have this great brand and heritage to our company. So we want to keep that.
Speaker: We also want to move quickly. We also recognize that candidates want to move quickly as well. So I think what we've heard from candidates is they love the ability to schedule using a paradox, Alicia, right? texting, I can do it all on my phone, I can chat to apply, everything.
Speaker: Perfect. They do want to talk to someone at some point, whether it's a recruiter, oh yeah a hiring leader, they want to have some type of face-to-face yes um or video call or whatever it might be to really understand that because that's important to them. So one of the things we've talked about is for our store associates, our retail associate, right, which is about 75% part-time employees.
Speaker: we've thought about, do they need to talk to anyone? Could we just do all video interviewing, like just prerecorded virtual interviews? Do they have to talk to anyone? And we've not gone down that path yet because I think what we've decided and what we've heard really from our candidates is they do want to talk to someone. Yeah. Even if they're only planning to work 15, 20 hours. yeah None of us would accept a job if we didn't talk to somebody in real. like no And you're thinking, well, it's just an hourly job. But like no, to them, that could be their career. That could be whatever. like It's still important to know that, hey, is this real? yeah Yes. yeah And once they know it's real, then they're like, okay, now automate it right? Yes, absolutely. Now I only want to communicate with you by text message. yeah yeah Yeah, onboarding, all that stuff. Make it as easy as possible. But there is still that value in the human interaction. Absolutely. yeah
Speaker: It'll be interesting to see how like the younger generations, like... Gen Alpha, I've got an Alpha, will expect this to be, if they're fine with the no communication. Now, what are you, I know you have a couple sons, right? I have two boys. Two boys. Okay. How old are they? 16 and 13. Okay. So the 16 year old, like what is his expectation for the AI piece as he's maybe thinking about getting into the workforce? So right now they're taught at school ai is bad.
Speaker: because they're not allowed to use it for anything, which is absurd to me because yeah, the workforce is going to require them to use it. yeah It's going to require them to use it. And it's better if they know it. i mean, he takes business classes, so they use it there. Um, but there's this feeling of like, it's bad. And I think he's thinking more fear factor on his side. Can I use it? Like, what would an interview be like? Am I allowed to prep using chat GPT? Am I allowed to answer questions using it? more concerned with, is he doing something wrong? Cause they've been scolded so much at school. So i think that's the fear factor, but Tim and I have talked about this, the issue right now with like, he wants a summer job, an hourly job.
Speaker: And it's very hard for 16 year olds in our area to get jobs. They go typically to um college students coming home sure or seniors graduating. And it's unless he's going to like volunteer at a summer camp, he's not getting an hourly job. It's crazy. Wow. Yeah. You never think like that's usually there's always somebody begging for it. Yeah. Yeah. yeah And it probably is. It just depends on like, again, how dirty do you want to get or whatever? yeah Like kids get picky too. Yeah. Sure. yeah It's an amazing kind of thing. dig you said Sorry, I was going to add just real quick. I think the use of AI in interviews is it's a really interesting kind of thing.
Speaker: paradox there, right? Like what is the appropriate amount? And I know I've been fortunate enough to be around some of the other team leaders in the retail space and we're all kind of talking about should it be prohibited? Should it be allowed? Because technically if you get hired, you can utilize AI and in fact, you're going to be encouraged to use AI. So why why could or why should we tell you you can't use in your interview? I agree with you, too. it's a delicate balance, I understand, too, though, of not wanting to hire someone that's just they've utilized for their entire interview process. yeah So it's still kind of a fine line that I think every employer is trying to walk through a...
Speaker: what's the appropriate amount knowing that when they join, we're actually gonna encourage them to utilize the tool. Absolutely. Yeah, like my thing is that's a big f little f fraud thing. yeah like To me, the little f fraud, I'm not saying it's not important, because i don't wanna hire someone who's willingly lying about like their background or something. But if they say, oh, I'm gonna suck up my resume to GPT and have it say, hey, match my resume and my background and qualifications as good as yeah as ah as I can yeah me.
Speaker: to the job. So I'm not lying, but it's cannna it's trying to enhance it to yeah to be as good. I'm not going to say, hey, put me down as a job I've never done. Like, I'm not doing that. right um I think at any point you would go, that's fine.
Speaker: And like anything, if we found somebody lying on a job application or lying or whatever, you're probably going to go, yeah, i don't want that person. Right. Right. But do i do I care that they used are they and an resume? Yeah, there's a difference, right? I know, and I think about it a lot. I actually think about this topic quite a bit on the interview side too, because I think if somebody does not interview well, it doesn't mean they're not going to be great at their job. That's right. It just means they don't interview well. And why can't you have a note taker or an assistant to help you? Don't, don't forget about this. yeah Don't like I tell people. It's individual contributor job. All they're going to do is sit behind a tube all day. And just remember you did this program at NASA and yeah college and that might be good to remind the interviewer of that program. And that, I don't see that as being negative. No. I think taking notes on a piece of paper can also remind you, the,
Speaker: did you know, people don't want you to lie and make up something. no I get that. The lying thing is where I cut that off, right? I don't want anyone to lie. But they're using AI to better market themselves because they're not good at that or or or to set themselves up for answering a good interview question because they prepared well by by practicing. Right. Like, yeah. good Good. Awesome. I want that. I want someone who's prepared and willing to use the tools at their disposal. right Don't lie to me. Be prepared. yeah well um yeah And one of the things like we say like even internally is like AI should never be your final product, right like even like from a work perspective. So what we always utilize it is like a starting point. So wouldn't I want my candidates to have the same approach of like,
Speaker: to your point, Tim, you don't want them lying about their experience. But if they're utilizing and say, hey, help me summarize my experience, help me to, you know, kind of be able to answer these questions. To me, that's actually just being really well prepared and exactly utilizing the technology that's available to you. Yeah.
Speaker: Do you have um a lot of workers or do you hire um English as a second language in certain areas? Because I think it also plays in like I've had a couple Uber rides lately where there's a translator in the Uber so we can communicate back and forth. that's interesting. But I think even, you know, which was an AI tool being used on their phone. And I think if you think about that, I mean, I know a lot of big employers are hiring people who are English as a second language. And why not have that tool or assistant to help even sometimes when they might be speaking their primary language in the work environment?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. We we definitely hire we have several stores in Quebec, right? So French Canadian being really the primary language there. We have obviously stores in like Miami or South Florida or some other areas that are maybe a heavy Hispanic population as well, right, where you do get more Spanish speakers. So what we're really utilizing is Paradox, like to really help us like from an applicant perspective yeah of all that chat to apply, being available in every language, being able to get to the process a little bit easier. answer those questions, et cetera. So it's something that I think is definitely on the rise. And we've kind of started from an applicant side of making sure that they have the ease to be able to apply and and get in and have the same opportunity as everyone else.
Speaker: Remind me the name of your bot. What is it? Alicia. a Alicia. So Alicia, mean, how, what a great experience. Right. yeah if you know you're kind of communicating with Alicia and she's speaking to you in Spanish. Yeah, absolutely. So it's been super helpful for us there. We're trying to see, you know, as because we do offices in Asia, so in Hong Kong and things like that, right? Like what's kind of that next iteration look like for her, but for now, English, French, Canadian and not Spanish. Jason, thank you so much for sharing the story. Appreciate that. How can people find you?
Speaker: um Check me on LinkedIn. There are a lot of Jason Smiths. So i always recommend yeah I would type in Jason Smith Carters on LinkedIn. You can find me there. I'm always happy to connect and share any insights and just kind of share more about what we're doing at Carters. And then also always love to hear what other companies are doing. Right. There's so much value in these types of conversations because no one's got the silver bullet. Right. Everyone. We're all trying to figure it out together. That's awesome. All right. Hey, everybody. That's another episode for Madeline Arano. I'm Tim Sackett.
Speaker: Check out more stories on other episodes with the great leaders like Jason. We'll see you soon. Thank you guys.
