(Sometimes Not So) Deep Thoughts:

Last week, we looked broadly at many factors forcing hard-pivots in recruitment strategies today. We mentioned AI, priority shifts in technologies like ATS, and how immigration can play into that future.

It’s timely then, that recent economic updates paint an unsurprising picture. In October, Canada’s unemployment rate rose 5.7%, vs 5.5% the prior month. Only 18,000 jobs were added vs September’s 64,000 jobs. Particular industries that saw job losses? Wholesale retail trade, and manufacturing. 

Part-time positions increased by 20,800 workers, while full-time jobs decreased by 3,300. All the while, immigration continues to surge, driving expansion in the overall labor force. 

What Does That Mean for TA Leaders?

This translates to more applicants per posting, especially for part-time positions. Now add a sprinkle of reduction in barriers for people to apply to jobs, both planned and in-action already, and now you have a recipe for a wave of applicants to your postings. 

Of those legislative changes, there’s a few I’d like to highlight:

1. Ban on Canadian Experience Requirements for Immigrants

   This week, Ontario will introduce legislation to remove requirement for immigrant workers to have Canadian work experience when applying for positions. If passed, this would create an overnight shift in your applicant pipeline. 

2. Delayed Legislation on Increased Fees for Recruitment 

   Also in Ontario, a legislation that would have forced recruiting and staffing agencies to pay a $25,000 letter of credit, and a $750 fee, has been delayed until July 1, 2024. The main issue is that all recruiting firms would be forced into these fees, when it’s really short-term staffing agencies that pay employees directly in need of additional oversight (a reminder that Mindfield focuses on long-term hourly employee recruitment, so we’re outside that part of our industry). The delay is welcome news, but only time will tell if additional review will enable more nuanced legislation.  If passed as-is, I would foresee an increased cost across all recruitment efforts, whether you’re using an agency or in-house team.

3. BC Pay Transparency Act

   On November 1, BC’s Pay Transparency Act went live, meaning all postings need to list an acceptable description of salary. Friendly reminder that all of these examples are considered acceptable:

   •  $20 per hour

   •  $20–$30 per hour

   •  $40,000 annually

   •  $40,000–$60,000 annually

While it’s great news for job seekers, it undeniably makes recruitment more challenging by exposing lower pay employers, which can result in fewer applicants to those postings. At the same time, higher pay employers will get inundated. Add the effect of filtering tools in job search platforms, and now you’re looking at a scale problem too. On a final note, platforms like Indeed will now have very rich data on salary. What they end up doing with that data is anyone’s guess but I would expect some increased form of monetization over the coming years.

As I see it, AI has a role to play in addressing the challenges coming our way. I’d like to spend the rest of the letter exploring how I’m using AI to improve efficiency, and deal with a growing set of large scale hiring.

AI and Recruiting in the Next Two Years

AI is advancing rapidly but what will really move the needle when leveraging AI in your recruiting cycle? 

• Learning prompts to unlock the power of generative AI tools in the talent acquisition cycle: HR and TA teams 

• Empowering employer brand: AI for copywriting: any organization, big or small can increase the quality and their employer brand in the job seeker market. Leveraging AI content generation tools for job descriptions, career site content, email 

• Focus on what creates success:  

  • Cover letter – why review? Written by AI. Not just because of the cover letter. Focus on the main criteria and skills that are important on a new employee is successful in the future. 

  • Create effective and scalable ways to assess based on role type

• Intentional interviewing: AI to create intentional interview experiences for both HMs and candidates:

  • Give Hiring Managers the tools to be an effective interviewer

    • Detailed interview questions based on role type

    • Interviews are more detailed, planned, and focused

Shift to what really matters in building a strong, successful and engaged workforce. Understand your organization’s appetite and readiness for rapid technology changes. Run a hybrid approach where AI tools and systems augment teams, supporting them to focus on high value work. 

AI in Driving Performance in Large TA Teams

Understanding the true value of Recruiters in the talent acquisition process and implementing tools to enhance this. Focused conversations that allow for fluid discussion, discovery of skill and ability to promote culture, growth & development and opportunities offered by companies. 

• AI Interview Assistance: Leverage AI technology to take notes during candidate conversations to increase the Recruiter’s focus on creating effective interviews and strong candidate experiences 

  • Create interview documents that are searchable

  • Update CRM with transcribed notes

• Interview Collaboration: Using AI-prompted keywords, recruiter conversations are guided and using keywords so that working with Hiring Managers, HR, and any other cross-functional teams becomes easy and seamless. Not only are you able to create consistent candidate experiences but documentation is structured by AI and available in both voice and written snippets.  

• Data Enabled Conversation Intelligence: 

  • Learn critical insights about the recruiter’s performance when conducting interviews. Take performance coaching to the next level by reviewing data trends in conversations allowing managers to hyper-focus on building skills with tangible data

  • Candidate’s performance against certain questions to gauge how people respond and if the question is accurately assessing the desired skill.

Memes (that made us laugh, think, spit out our coffee)

To wrap things up, here’s this week’s meme, which I think appropriately sums up the theme this week. Until next time!