With experience working in early careers in the UK and on a global scale, James Gordanifar joins Hannah Mullaney to discuss the cultural and market differences that exist around the world, current challenges in the space and how organizations need to adapt as new generations enter the workforce.
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Hannah
Hello today I’m joined by James Godanifar to talk about student recruitment and the challenges of doing that globally. James, welcome.
James
Thank you.
Hannah
To kick us off, could you just give us a potted history of your career to date? A bit of your background?
James
Are you sure you want to ask that question? So I actually started my career as an actor. And after a couple of years of doing bits and bobs decided I wanted a proper job and I’d always funded my kind of studies and acting through working hospitality. So it seemed like a safe bet to do the management programme with the restaurant that I work for, big branded chain of restaurants. So I ended up working, managing a restaurant.
James
And I met my well now wife at the time. And the whole nine to five thing needed to be a focus for me to have kids and all the rest of it. So at that point I fell into recruitment and I didn’t really know what it was. And I started that. So recruitment consultant, recruiting IT professionals. And over time, kind of climb away up the ranks and moved closer to more of an internal in-House role. And I sort of again fell into student recruitment, but with a really big employer. And yeah, Fast forward 10 years. I’ve done a number of roles within early careers in different organisations, in different capacities, and now I’m a global head of talent acquisition for all of early career’s talent at WTW.
Hannah
Excellent. Thank you. And one question that I think would be really interesting to understand the answer to is, I know you’ve done a lot of UK focused roles. You’re now in a global role. What’s the biggest difference in global recruitment as compared to UK based recruitment?
James
Yeah, I mean, you could talk about kind of cultural differences, but I actually think the biggest difference is the kind of the market norms and the market drivers.
Hannah
Mm.
James
So in the UK, you’re really kind of, it’s a really sophisticated early careers market. You know we take for granted that. You know, we have CV blind processes. Many organisations have removed academics. We place emphasis on skills and we have assessments and technology driven processes, assessment centres like, you know it’s taken for granted because when you go across the pond in North America. It’s actually a lot more traditional than you’d expect. And there’s a real resistance to things like. Well, the GPA is everything, right? That’s going to determine whether someone’s successful, so that that the kind of, you know, as you come from the UK where it’s kind of hang on a minute. We know that not to be true. And it’s all about potential. There’s a natural rub there, for example. So that’s one of the things I’ve definitely encountered in that market. And then the processes themselves are less tech enabled. They’re more CV focused, you know, working with assessments is not really the norm.
James
You know in early careers over there, we’ve done it, but it’s been challenging. Yeah. And then if you think about in Asia, for example in. India, you know, again massive focus on hierarchy. In fact, there are certain this was amazing to me. There are certain tearing within the individual universities. So for example we couldn’t go and present at certain university unless we met their criteria as a tiered employer. So they have Tier 1, Tier 2.
James
Might be and that determines like what kind of qualifications you get or what salary you’re going to give. Whether you meet their tie ring.
Hannah
Interesting.
James
So you can’t go and present at any university. You’ve got to be tied by the university, so totally different market pressures as. Work in the global completely.
Hannah
A whole new world. Literally. And I mean really interesting to hear some of your experience of working in the states there and it being maybe a little bit more traditional and what what’s the impact on DE&I, which I know will definitely be a topic we talk about today. But those more traditional approaches focused on CVS are getting a lot of attention at the moment.
Hannah
In terms of impact of generative AI. You know, problems with bias when reviewing CVS that aren’t blind. What are those conversations like with your US colleagues?
James
Yeah, that in some respects they’re almost ground zero educational and kind of showing them what things could be based on what we’ve done in the UK and that’s why I say it’s such a sophisticated market. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but there are practises. Is that could work in the context of the USI mean one of the things is about how you tier the universities that you actually go to in the 1st place. They have this whole. Term around HBCU so former colleges essentially that were kind of more from traditional times where certain demographics could only go to those universities, right, and they’re still in existence, but. Of more. Mainstream now and part of the overall kind of community of university and so on. So actually there’s a whole strategy around working with those particular universities. And putting emphasis there equally as well, they have D and I partnerships and events similar to the UK, but probably not as prominent. But the big thing over there is actually the digital outreach. There are apps and specific tools that mean you can target direct source candidates. So again, you’re kind of like you’re taking bits of what we do in the UK and applying it to a totally different context to drive a better outcome.
Hannah
Yeah, absolutely. And maybe just sort of panning out for a little bit thinking about student recruitment generally. What would you say are the biggest challenges for student recruitment at the moment?
James
There’s a few, I think, that are quite prominent at the moment. I think one of the biggest ones and I think more employers should talk about this is the latent impact of the pandemic on young people. And I think there are elements of this that we’re not going to see. Like we’re seeing it now, but we’re probably not going to see for a number of years. You know, if I think about my own children at the time, who were about 8:00 and 5:00, I think.
James
And you know the kind of shock to the system that had on them the lost learning I saw in my son, particularly who was five a lot in confidence, right for a sustained period of time. I don’t what’s that impact right now. Now he’s 10 or whatever it is. And what’s that going to be in 60, you know, when he’s 16, how can you catch up? Because there’s 40 years. Yeah, we don’t know what that’s going to look like and we’re already seeing it in students coming through into the workplace. A sense of lost confidence, less ability to have work experiences and kind of coming in. And, you know, I think a recent study, I think it, I think it was the ISA, it was around 50%. Employers were saying that actually they do not feel graduates at work ready, so employers aren’t work harder to build that confidence, build those capabilities. And this is just the start of it.
Hannah
Yeah, it’s. I think that’s a really good point. I think it will be felt for a long time. We did a really interesting piece of work. This is going back a number of years, but it was essentially asking the question what parts of us and our personalities. Are we either kind of born with or, you know, perhaps they’re developed in early childhood, our formative years. Versus you know, what are the things that we pick up through our formal education and what are the things that? Pick up with work experience. And what we found was that. The kind of strategic kind of pioneering stuff that came with work experience. The skills around sort of organisation and analysis came with our formal education people skills that seemed you’ve either had it or you or you didn’t. So that’s either an 8 or formed in early childhood. So I think that’s a really good point. We could see. An impact on. People coming through, young people coming through in 1520 years time and we probably need to plan for that.
James
Yeah. And we’re not even talking about, obviously, then the societal piece and things like social media, right, the impact that it has on communication. You know, everybody’s talking about that, but actually, what are we going to do about it?
Hannah
Yeah.
James
I was at an event earlier today actually, and we were talking about recruiters, the role of a recruiter changing as Gen AI comes into the workplace. And someone was saying, well, they’re going to do more hi value add activity. We expect them to pick up the phone and talk to candidates. Well, guess what, candidates probably under 30 don’t want you to pick up the phone to them. And if you call them, they’re probably not going to answer. So I’m not sure that’s the answer, is it? It might be. There are different strokes for different folks. And actually the skill is going to be Personalisation.
Hannah
Absolutely personalisation, definitely something I want to come back to before we go. So how do you think we can help build young people’s confidence and get them more work ready? What are the things organisations can be doing?
James
They have to first of all accept that that is a thing and you’re not just going to get someone from day one that is, you know, you’re going to hit the ground running and be ultimately successful. You’ve got to play a part in that success and work readiness.
James
Will need to be invested in both in terms of once they hit the ground and the support around them, and the considerations around things like working from home and whether they should be learning from others and observing certain things, but also the aspects of what can you do before they join.
Hannah
Yes.
James
Right. And actually assessments and interesting piece there because the process should really tell you what are the gaps and here go hiring manager, this is where your individual might need some support. What can you be doing you know before?
James
Joy met alone once. They do join, definitely. And I think. Goes before that and I think where employers are not. Now, over the past few years and not done enough of this because we’ve taken it for granted that we’ve got digital tools and you know, kind of the game has changed in early careers and everybody’s thinking about transformation and all these different ways of outreach that we’ve forgotten some of the basics of the relationship, career services, the relationship with faculty. And the feedback loop from employers into education. Patient, maybe even schools with apprenticeships as well.
Hannah
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think we’ve, we’ve had a conversation before. Touching a little bit on that around that, I think there’s a need for recruitment and talent development to work more closely together, to harness all of that amazing data that you’re getting at recruitment. Age and using it not just for onboarding and early development, but the pre boarding piece as well. I think there’s real opportunity there.
James
Yeah, definitely. I mean it’s a fine balance though, right? Because if you imagine, you know, being assuming you know, graduate, you’ve kind of got your offer, you’ve got your finals to complete and then your employer saying come and learn this with us as well, right? So it is a fine balance. And I think there’s probably ways of doing that in a more effective impactful way. I mean, one thing that springs to mind, not that we.
James
I’m not saing. We’re doing this and we’ve got it right, but you know you one of the biggest things in early careers right now is to create a sense of cohort because of longer term engagement and retention and the feeling of community that can start before they join. And actually there’s opportunities to bring them into your environment if it’s been mostly virtual as well, they’re going to work there.
James
Get them involved in the office and as part of that. Let’s do a session on what it means. What does day one look like? Well, how do you how do you go from being a, you know, kind of a graduate to a professional? What does that actually look like? You know, make it a bit more engaging, throwing a free lunch as well.
Hannah
Yeah, always helps. And I guess going back to personalization. That plays a role, right? So rather than having a sheep dip approach where you go, here you go, everyone. Here’s all of the pre boarding come and do XYZ actually. Maybe giving individuals some choice over what they focus on and making it personalised I think could have quite a big impact as well.
James
Yeah, I think so. And that the role, that’s where I think the role of the ultimately the line manager and but also a buddy is really important and that should really start before, before. It’s difficult to say. Oh, someone’s been offered six months out. Let’s you know, you might not even know who the line manager is going to be at that point in early career is, but certainly a couple of months before they join. You’d expect that to be in place, right? So I think there’s opportunities there. And speaking to personalization.
James
You know, it might be actually that those conversations are geared around that and you equipped them to have better conversations around how do you learn?
Hannah
Yeah.
James
Know what? What’s going to work for you? Maybe they don’t know. And that’s part of your role. To help them find out, you know?
Hannah
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And do you see that sort of approach also helping with renegues because we’re seeing that, yeah, as an issue for a lot of big employers where graduates are accepting four or five offers. And then waiting until a couple of months before to choose which one they’re actually going to start with.
James
Yeah, that’s been a growing phenomenon for the time I’ve worked in early careers, it’s just kind of snowballed with the pandemic, I think.
Speaker
Why do you think that is?
James
you know, I think part of it is we’re talking about personalization. I think partly it’s dehumanisation.
Hannah
Interesting.
James
I think we’ve gone so virtuous. That actually that so for example, the reason why every employer I’ve ever worked for and you ask the students, why did you choose us like in a focus group or whatever.
James
Always consistently. The main answer is because the people. The people I engage with the impression they gave me. It’s not your EVP and your website and the pace of your. All. Stuff we care about and we’re spending thousands of pounds on. Great. Just get into. With real people that might help you, and I think we don’t do enough of it. Our organisation as a whole and not doing enough of it because I’m relying too much on virtual and tech and all the rest of it. And that might be driving some of that behaviour.
Hannah
Yeah. I Saw in the paper a week or so ago that Deloitte is bringing back face to face interviews. I think this is possibly more to do with some kind of diligent stuff around being concerned that cheating isn’t being picked up on, but I guess there are other angles to that. There could be other benefits. What what’s your view on that?
James
Yes.
Hannah
Is that what we should be doing more of?
James
Well, there’s definitely a growing sentiment in the market that we should and there’s a growing sentiment in my business that we should and there’s growing desire from candidates that they want to meet and engage based.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
Base but in you know at the right point and at the you know and so on and so forth. My view is I think there is no substitute for meeting somebody face to face and if you’re going to make a decision about the rest of your rest of your life, while I say the rest of your life, but certainly hopefully the 1st 10 years of your life by joining an organisation.
James
And if an organisation is going to take a chance on an individual, surely you’re going to want to do that in the most robust way and I. A virtual recruitment process and all the wonderful technology that we have in place can do a lot.
James
A lot of positive things for you. We probably have the Gen AI conversation in the moment, right?
Hannah
Yeah.
James
But I believe there is no substitute for meeting someone face to face and that kind of all the stuff you can’t pick up on in a virtual setting, let alone the cheating side and all the rest of it. Right? So I’m pro that and I’m hopeful that more of that will come back into recruitment processes.
Hannah
Yeah. What are the barriers that need to be kind of knocked down in order for that to happen?
James
Well, I think one of them is obviously cost.
Hannah
Hmm. Yeah
James
Companies saved a lot of money by going virtual. When it comes to recruitment, there’s also a timepiece there. There are certain corners of the student market that don’t necessarily want to travel and have the kind of inconvenience, if you will, doing that for an interview, which sounds crazy when you really want a job, but that is a sentiment that’s out there as well, and something you need to demonstrate the benefit of.
Hannah
Is there a diversity element to that as well, maybe for particularly from a social mobility perspective?
James
Possibly, but you know, I don’t know. Why is that changed since four years ago or five years ago? You know, when that was the norm and common practise?
Hannah
Yeah, that’s true. Generative AI. We’ve touched on it, so let’s go there. It has really very quickly. Brought up a number of new challenges for student recruitment processes. What are the things that worry you most?
James
I think that what worries me most is that assessments per se weren’t necessarily built with generative AI in mind or assessment processes, even right. So we’re having to almost retrofit.
James
And it’s a bit square peg in a round hole rather than saying, OK, let’s solve for this problem right now. I think that there’s the obvious piece around cheating, and there’s a whole debate as to is it cheating? You know which I think is really confusing because actually, you know, if you’re expecting someone to be their authentic self and give an authentic response, then yes, that’s cheating, right? Surly.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
Well, I don’t know how you get around that and start to have a conversation about it, or debate. And I’m on that side, right. I think there are place we should design for aspects in the recruiting process where we embrace Gen AI because they’re going to use it in their role. But let’s look at how they used it, how they got to the response they got to how they prompted, how they thought. They coded it whatever. Great.
Hannah
Exactly.
James
And let’s ask that question, right? Why you shy away from that? We want them to embrace that particular younger generation. Need to bring that energy and that that thought leadership in a way.
Hannah
For sure. But you. To assess it and standardise way. That’s fair. Yeah.
James
And there aren’t really any robust solutions for that right now. It’s just a conversation, you know, so I think that’s what concerns me really. And I think you know I definitely and that’s comes back to the. To face. I want to see someone authentic self.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
And that’s what worries me is that actually even in a not even an asynchronous video interview, for example in a in just a live video interview, you could 100% have a prompt up over here with ChatGPT. If you’re smart, you know you take the. Bits. Glance over and you just merge that into. You know your general answer that you’d have anyway, and no one’s going to know the difference.
James
Yeah. So that’s what worries me absolutely.
Hannah
Yeah. And I think there’s something also about being able to or kind of maybe it’s more to do with interviewer skill. I think interview skills are going to become more and more critical in order to be able to really prove.
James
Yeah. Yeah.
Hannah
An answer and peel back the onion layers to make sure that you are getting that authentic self rather than taking answer number one at face value again, OK yes, that ticks all of my scoring criteria on to the next one.
James
Yes.
Hannah
And I think actually what’s happened over the years is that and I don’t think this is student recruitment specific. I actually think this is across the board. That focus on building assessor skills, good assessor skills it, but good interview skills. Has changed somewhat and I think organisations are much more willing to cut corners on paying for decent training, for example.
James
Yes.
Hannah
I think you also find that people go. I can interview. I’m very good at interviewing. And they don’t. Soon think about all of the biases that that they might have and they don’t recognise that actually to retain those skills they kind of need to go back to the classroom on a regular basis. And check in and I think that’s something that’s going to become more and more important to kind of test that authenticity piece.
James
Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. And they thought, I mean, you touched on it there, but you know we, we, the ED and I are. As well as the. Is this an authentic answer? I mean yes, let alone is the response relevant to the questions that I have. Yeah. Right. You’ve got so many facets now and I’m a recruiter by trade. And you know by heart, I guess.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
And even I would find that difficult. So we’re then asking someone in the business, it’s not their day job to do this, right. So there’s that angle. So 100%, the other aspects as well is though, like team screening teams who could be based in Manila, you know, or I don’t know, somewhere in Mumbai, for example, this is a real thing that organisations are leveraging to screen the responses of thousands of candidates. You know, not only do you have all the layers, I’ve just spoken about, but you’ve also got the language. Element as well. So these people need to be superhuman. And by the way, we want to try and pay them as little as possible so that we’ve got cost efficiency. So yeah, how do you solve that challenge?
Hannah
Yes. Yeah, Not right here. Right now. I think that’s a big one. That is a really big one, absolutely.
James
I’m not sure, yeah.
Hannah
And do you see different challenges in different parts of the world just going back to the kind of global versus kind of country specific or region specific role when it comes to generative?
James
It’s I think it’s really early to say. You know, I don’t observe any specific difference right now in terms of what the conversation we’re having because we’re still forming our opinion meaning on it and how that’s going to play out in different markets. There’s probably a legislative side to this, that different mark, we already see that in New York, for example, with New York City law and so on.
Hannah
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
James
There’s different levels of tolerance around this kind of whole AI talk. The other thing I think would probably be a cultural one. In certain cultures, you know it is favourable to cheat. That is a positive thing that’s looked on positively to win an outcome. Whether you agree with that or not, it’s a different thing, right? But that’s the thing in certain cultures. So that could play out as well.
Hannah
Absolutely, indeed. And trying to build a global. Strategy and global consistency with all of that going on, that’s pretty tough, yeah. We touched on DE and I there it’s a topic that’s been at the top of most organisations agendas for a long time now, but I think we’ve seen shifts in different focus areas.
Hannah
So Social mobility. Neuro diversity absolutely come to the fore. What are the differences you see globally here in terms of that different focus?
James
Yeah, and it really does differ depending on the market that you’re operating in. So as you say, UK and Ireland to a degree, social mobility neurodiversity have become, you know, big focuses. Whereas if I think about North America and the kind of conversations we have in that market, it’s more around gender and ethnicity. More so and then in APAC, one of the things that’s starting to come to the fore is around sexuality.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
It’s more of a focus and a topic that people are start to think about and be more concerned about.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
So yeah, it does vary depending on market.
Hannah
And then how do? Say similar questions to the last which we said. Very difficult. Was the. How do you bring that all together into a cohesive global strategy?
James
And it’s obviously very difficult. I think one of the biggest things, and perhaps one of my bugbears when it comes to diversity and recruitment, is that for a number of years, you know you’ve been asked for your diversity strategy or your social mobility strategy and within diversity, you’ve obviously got all these different strands. We’ve only touched on what three or four of them there, right, so OK. And you’ve got your kind of operational strategy over here? And it’s kind of like, well, hang on a minute. am I meant to have like 12 different strategies to, you know, deliver this result? So one of my bug bears, actually, it should be 1 strategy diversity should be part of everything that you do. And every conversation when I’m designing an EVP and a new employee brand message. I’m not doing that just to deliver more volume or better quality. I’m also doing that thinking about diversity in mind or a new assessment process. I’m thinking about that in with adverse impacts in mind
James
Right. And the other bug bear of mine and where it comes to strategy as well is actually if you lead with diversity, I think you’re pressing on the wrong focus. Diversity is the outcome.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
For me, that actually the focus is inclusion and actually if you get inclusion and the whole equity piece right that drives the right outcomes. So let’s have that conversation within our processes within our strategy, how is it inclusive? How do you adapt to a different type of audience in a different type of market because you’ve built for that level of flexibility?
James
So I think those are the things that spring. Mind for me?
Hannah
Absolutely. And candidate experience, I quite like to touch on as well. Another, I think another thing that’s been at the top of student recruitment agendas for quite some time now. And because it’s so paramount to student recruitment teams, I think often what happens is that the individuals and those teams are kind of looking for the next shiny new thing. You know, as a way to woo candidates to help them stand out from a crowd. Very crowded market.
Hannah
I think in. Way this is brilliant. It’s really pushed the market on from a creativity perspective. However, I think it can very easily come at the expense of robustness. And So what are the things that you’re thinking about and considering when you’re looking at assessment as part of the student recruitment process?
James
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think one of the first mantras is just because. You can. Doesn’t mean you should. I think that’s a big theme at the minute within all parts of business that loan recruitment right there are so many shiny toys out there. But actually, are you clear on your North star as a business as ATA function, you know, what are you hanging your hat off? Because that is your guiding principle.
James
And so I think you got to start from that base because then that that gives you a set of criteria that actually you can evaluate different providers against and suppliers. I think that again, before you even get to the shiny toy element or which provider you’re going to work with well. The biggest thing to understand is that robustness around their success or job. For me great assessment starts there. You don’t get a great assessment without a really great job analysis. Your success analysis. The more time you spend understanding that the governance around that, who you’re going to engage, how robust it is, how much investment of time and what kind of data and richness you’re going to get.
James
That’s going to determine how successful your assessment is in in my mind. So really that’s one of the biggest things you should be evaluating a provider against. How often have they done that? What are their process? You know how what impact has that had and what are the credentials then on the back of that with other organisations and that’s before you get to the efficacy of the tool that they have, right, which is obviously super important because what you’re hiring for is quality. Does it give you the right output? Does it make business results and impact? Can the evidence?
Hannah
Yeah
James
Increased quality, better diversity, a better candidate experience, whatever it is. And that’s when it comes back to you, true north. Those are some of the things that really spring to mind before you get to how immersive is this experience for a candidate? Because that is important. And what I’m a fan of and I’ve done it in a couple of roles. But actually I’d really like to do more of this is how do you tie? The whole assessment part of the process to the to a narrative arc. That goes through the whole recruiting process. Yeah. So you’ve got that stickiness, that affinity, that connection with the brand and the authenticity of the people that you’ve seen in, oh, my God, the person that’s speaking to me in this video interviewed tutorial is the person that was on the website in a, you know, it’s really thinking about the end to end journey.
Hannah
Yeah, absolutely. Yes.
James
And I think that’s where you can win in this space and you can help reduce reneges to clients and all the rest of it.
Hannah
And it’s not just in that recruitment process, it is it, that narrative arc and that thread. We then want to that to continue into pre boarding, on boarding, development and then ultimately that.
Hannah
You get better attention as well at the end of it.
James
Yeah. So it’s that commonality of not just it’s psychology really, is it. We think about it, the language that you’re using and the tone of voice like and I really believe in this as well that yes, the nuances with your EVP in the market and your employer brand.
James
To what your internal engagement and comms strategy is, but there should be unifying factors and principles behind that, because that journey starts from the minute you interact with the brand and it doesn’t look too dissimilar when I’m in the organisation, right? But then that comes back to the point that has to be an authentic shop window.
Hannah
Yes, yes.
James
And that’s another bugbear of mine. And that’s happened massively since the pandemic. Organisations like spending, you know, 10s, if not hundreds of thousands on their employer brand and it looks amazing. But is it really like that when you join? You know, and I think that’s very questionable.
Hannah
And it and it ends up being you. You start and you go, “oh, I’m. I’m not in the games room everyday playing table football”. I’m actually sat on my own in front of a spreadsheet for 12 hours. Yeah, absolutely So.
James
Exactly.
Hannah
And are there any nuances on that from a global perspective?A different markets wanting different things in terms of their kind of North Star or in terms of candidate experience?
James
Yeah. I think from all facets of the recruitment process, there are nuances. Some of the obvious things that come to mind is imagery. Language is obviously a really big thing as well. And you know they care about different types of messaging and there are different kind of motivators.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
But I suppose what I’ve learnt is that through everything you need to find the common threads, whether it’s the language or the narrative, and then you adapt that according to what’s important in that market or whatever. There’s a commonality to that Messaging, right?
But when I think about the the kind of processes we have in place, this is where you can really trip up from an operational point of view. So if you’re over customising for every market because the US wants to recruit in this way and not, you know, India want to recruit in this way and the UK wants to do this. Like you can, you can quickly tie yourself up in knots and then you can’t achieve a global efficient process where actually you could have people supporting from a different location with a team. Here in North America, it’s never going to happen. There’s too much nuance to what you’ve got to find is what other. I call them almost most like gateways or the kind of steps that are set in stone and there’s a handshake that everyone goes through this gate, but we intentionally build within that gate a level of customization. For you, Mr X, in this business or the geography or whatever it might be, but the gate doesn’t change because if the gate changes or this fixed point in our process changes, we trip up and the service is not as good for you. It’s not as good for candidates. We don’t end up delivering the best outcomes in terms of quality of hire, whatever it might be.
James
And it’s those consistent points that you have to find in your process that are non-negotiable. And you help stakeholders understand why and the team understand why and then you build for customisation in those specific places.
Hannah
How have you best dealt with push back on the need for a common thread for that gate to not change?, because I imagine you get it. You get pushed back, you get people saying that we’re so different. We really need something unique. Where have you had the most success in challenging those beliefs?
James
Yeah. it’s been spending time with people and it’s been showing them through data. Largely it is rooted in data in some of these things like particularly around assessment and you’ll probably know this better than anybody, right.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
Sometimes you are asking people to take a leap of faith and you can’t get around that, and sometimes you have to say those words out loud.
Hannah
Yes. Yeah.
James
You’ve got to trust me that I’m an expert. What I do and I’ll live and die by what happens next.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
And then you demonstrate the results and it’s having a really authentic conversation at times like that. And you know, in our case, when I think about some of the assessments we’ve used in the past as well, like involving the provider in actually showcasing their capability and inviting that community in.
James
To ask the difficult questions and see that. They do know what they’re talking about, and there is structure behind this, but you can understand like Recruitment, let alone early careers, is sensitive and people, particularly early careers, you know, everyone has an opinion because everyone wants to school and university, right? So you, you’ve got to let them into that dialogue and that conversation and you’ve got to show them that it’s not a dark. And there’s transparency that sits behind it. And you do know what you’re doing in, in certain places.
Hannah
Yeah, I think the irony is I’ve always found it quite ironic anyway, that a lot of the time. People. Believe that they are a better judge of character than the machine. Maybe it’s human nature, right? It’s, you know, we want to see the whites. People. Eyes we trust our own judgement. The fact that the data is very clear, that humans are definitely not the best judge of other humans because. All of the bias. That we have that we’re that we’re just steeped in that no amount of unconscious bias training will get rid of. I think. That does result in people going. Yeah, I don’t. I’m not sure if I trust the tests. I did one of those once and I didn’t get the job. So therefore, you know, surely there’s a problem with it. And so that’s such a common conversation that I have with clients on such a regular basis or stakeholders.
James
Yeah, it definitely takes time and this iteration behind it as well, like with anything, you don’t get it right first time I found you know how experienced it. It’s not a silver bullet straight away and there’s constant review and insights and you know exploring the data and as well that’s where you can win stakeholders over is taking them on that journey.
Hannah
It does. No. Yeah. Yeah, with you.
James
He’s. Yeah, exactly. So that they can input and you can reshape it, and that’s why the success analysis or the job analysis is so important because actually it is your vehicle to involve them and for them to have a voice so that what you present back with the solution is.
James
OK, I recognise that in what I said?
Hannah
yeah, absolutely. And to just come back to that job analysis point, that’s so, so critical. Bizarrely, it’s often the part of the process. That’s left out. Yeah, so often. And I think, you know, when reviewing recruitment processes, regardless of where that sits in the organisation, whether it’s student leadership, professional hiring.
Hannah
So often we kind of point to the gap in hang on a minute. You haven’t actually done any proper job analysis here whatever. Whatever comes after that, it’s not going to work if you haven’t done your job analysis. It’s so critical, such a critical step. So you saying that was music to my ears? I very much enjoyed that.
James
Yeah. I think there is another component to this and you know maybe you’ve got a view on this as well though because what could? And I think we’ve talked about this in the past. What could be contentious around this is what’s going on over in talent and development and the skills based organisation and new entrance into this space that are going. Here’s a taxonomy with 20,000 skills.
Hannah
Yes.
James
Well, surely you need to anchor in that for your recruitment, but how do you recruit against 20,000 skills?
Hannah
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
James
It’s not possible. So what is a job analysis?
Hannah
Very true, very true. I think we could dive into skills. And never come out. But I’m going to ask you one question on it because I feel we can’t. Not now.
Skills in the in within student recruitment I think. What are the conversations you’re having there? Can you assess for skills with that group of people, given that actually you’re really hiring for potential? And do you think the conversations that are going on in organisations at the moment because people are so excited about skills and the pivot to skills?
James
Yeah, yeah.
Hannah
Do you think people are only getting a bit carried away and maybe missing the mark in student recruitment? I said one question that was about 5.
James
Yeah. Well, I think skills based hiring per SE, right is probably really effective and impactful. In experienced hire where you’ve built up a net, you know kind of a level of skills from your experience.
Hannah
Mm hmm.
James
Here it is, but then there’s the question of how do you define skill? Right and. You’re into the world. Some people are talking about behaviours when they’re really talking about skill or they’re talking about a trait and it’s like you mentioned about the personality piece and all that. That’s something you kind of learn rather than through your childhood rather than you can be taught.
So it’s almost like actually starts with how you Define skills based hiring right, and I’d argue in a way Early careers had probably been the closest to doing skills based hiring for a long time. It’s just not really necessarily skills or some of them are kind of innate things that actually they are essentially traits that they make up who you are, right. They’re not necessarily skills.
James
We’re just not labelling them correctly, but the notion of that type of hiring, I think we’ve been, we’ve been pioneering them because it rests on the quality of assessment and seeing someone perform something in situ rather than talking about this is where I’ve done it before and here are all my accolades and so on and so forth.
Hannah
Absolutely. It’s all I think there’s probably a need in student recruitement. And to it’s all you’re almost think wanting to think about what’s the potential someone has to develop this skill in the workplace. I guess looking back to the work readiness piece.
James
Yeah. So they’re probably where an assessment provider can really support is actually, how do some of those innate capabilities translate into future skills that’s powerful.
Hannah
Definitely agree. Agree. I think that’s probably where the future is going or should go. Anyway. I wanted to touch on Gen Z.
James
Yeah.
Hannah
There’s a lot of dialogue at the moment around Gen Z.
James
They’re a nightmare.
Hannah
Well, I think, yeah, focused on work life balance.
Hannah
Not prepared to give up their life for work. Which do you Know what? In a way I get, you know, if you think about starting salaries now and the majority of industries compared to the cost of living increase. Yeah, I kind of get it and I think. There’s a small part of me that kind of respects them. Yeah, they also have certain expectations of employers and of what employers will provide them with in terms of career development, career progression. But actually I think a lot of that rhetoric that I’ve sort of just described there around the typical Gen Z. Is actually focused more on Western European cultures.
Hannah
And you might not see those same characteristics in the east, for example.
James
Yeah.
Hannah
Do you think? Global Student recruitment teams are thinking about this enough?
James
I I definitely agree that there’s a lot of rhetoric. I definitely agree that it’s more pronounced in kind of Western developed countries. You know, I don’t operate in every single right, but the big ones, the, you know, usual suspects, it’s definitely a thing.
Hannah
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
James
Early careers in general and global early careers team through my map of the world are definitely talking about this. We just launched, Well we in partnership with our learning development function have just launched a module for managers across the company on helping them understand generational difference, how to work with colleagues at different ages for this very reason.
Hannah
Yeah, yeah.
James
And I think as we all things, this is a, this is also an opportunity. And there’s a real opportunity. For generations to learn from. Another and I think that’s the conversation we should probably be having, right? There’s nothing. It’s not generation Z’s and it’s a big label, right?
Hannah
Yeah.
James
Broad brush that it it’s not their fault that their map of the world is different to people who are at the top of the organisation. It’s just their map of the world is different, right? Their reference point is totally different and there’s an element of respecting that and try trying to understand it. I think that.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
So I think having the conversation and the education element that I mentioned is so important to actually kind of, say, hang on, let’s take a step back and think about how can we make the most of this circumstance. But equally on the flip side, I think there is. a and it probably comes back to a little bit about organisational work readiness. There’s a little bit there about meeting in. Middle as well.
Hannah
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
James
We’re mostly hiring early career talent, are big businesses and businesses function in a certain way.
James
They can’t just be, you know, kind of, I don’t know, working from a coffee shop. And you know what? You know, there’s an element of. Yes, of course, certain will be more flexible than others, and there might be days where you get to do that. That’s fine. But also as well as element where we need you to be present because there’s a client meeting or a team meeting and actually this is important to build relationships. And so I think there’s a meeting in the middle, you know, and I think there’s a pen, there’s a piece for me that the pendulum might have gone a little bit too far one way and there’s an element of organisations being brave enough to have that conversation.
Hannah
Yes. Do you think they’re too fearful that they’ll lose talent at the Moment?
James
I think so. And you know all the indications are you know that Generation Z want more variety and they want the opportunity to have side hustles. You know. So organisations think, well, how can we bend to this kind of or the opposite of the spectrum becoming quite draconian. I mean, we’ve heard in the news this week you must be in five days a week moving forward, right? It’s like, well, OK, what’s the solution here?
Hannah
Yeah, yeah.
James
And I think for me, a lot of the solution is, is the conversation. It’s having the dialogue and an open form where you can have that dialogue and somewhere meeting in the.
Hannah
Yeah. Middle. Yeah, and maybe there’s an element of just to go back to our personalization point, personalization to that as well because not everyone’s the same and most people need slightly different things.
James
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s fair.
Hannah
James. Final question. What would be your three top tips for anyone working in a global recruitment role today?
James
Don’t do it. No, I think. Probably the first thing is when I describe this as some people talk about cultural intelligence, I guess, but it’s more cultural dexterity, I would say.
James
I think you’ve got to really be curious about how different cultures operate and think not just from the market perspective, but the business stakeholder perspective, because what it’s going to win hearts and minds in one market is not going to win them in another. And you’ve to be tuned into that. So you’ve got to ask good questions. And sometimes you’re not going to be able to be in that market and understand it because you’re not sitting around someone learning from osmosis and you didn’t grow up in that market. So you’ve got to take time to understand it and learn about it and then be adaptable enough to say, well, my style in this meeting and that all this engagement needs to look different to what it is over here, right?
So a good example is India, where naturally is very hierarchical. It is, you know, I’ve described to you about the tearing at Universities and rather than push against that so well, we don’t operate that like that in the UK, right? It’s not going to work. So you’ve got to then respect that level of hierarchy but bring to bear the points that you’re trying to make in a different way and in a different setting. So that’s one area I’d definitely say.
Another area, and we’ve touched on this, is about building for customisation in a global team is critical so that you can start to get efficiencies and you know one team mentality and a mindset and all the rest of it. Umm. But being very, very deliberate as to where there should be nuance, finding that nuance, exploring where that should be so that you can strike the balance and you can fight for where that that consistency should be and where that nuance should come in because that’s really what your expertise should be about.
Hannah
Yeah.
James
It’s ultimately your operation, your team.
James
And stakeholders might not like it, and somebody in fact a stakeholder where I work now, once said stakeholders should get what they need, not necessarily what they want, right? And I think that’s really true.
James
I think it’s an important point for a global team. You want people to be happy with the service they’re getting, you want them to get great candidates. You know all of those things. But you cannot please everybody. That’s just a fact of life. So you’ve got to fight for the things that you know are going to deliver the best overall outcomes, and not everybody will like that. So you got to be OK with that and very confident in what that looks like. And I’m still learning. By. Way, I don’t think that ever stops.
And the final thing that I would say. Is you’ve got to practise what you preach when it comes to diversity. If you’ve got a global team, you’ve naturally got a diverse team. So how do you get the most out of diversity of thought and unlock the capability of your team because there is the power of innovation. You know how you can drive your operation and drive better results through your people through your own team. And so if you’re in the market talking about diversity, why it’s important and you’re talking about why your organisation is hiring diverse talent and how it has all these benefits if you’re not doing that yourself, it’s. It’s very hard to sell, but if you are. That’s an easy sell because you live and breathe it, right? So that’s one element of it. But the other aspect is I’ve seen it generate better results and it’s doing that in my team at the minute and we’re using, for example, we have global priorities and work streams.
James
We’ve created a PMO within the global team. and so we’ve got a consistency in terms of a way of working across a workstream, but the teams on those work streams, I’ve got people. Texas talking to somebody in Ipswich and on that call is somebody in Manila. Can you imagine, like the perspective in that conversation, to solve a problem like, I don’t know. You know, keep warm activities. I mean go figure. What that what’s that going to look like? But the output is then. Oh wow, I. Have never thought of that, so for me that’s been a real we talked. I’ve talked about it in the past and I’ve had great teams, but this has been a real lesson for me in the vehicle of how to unlock diversity. And see the benefit.
Hannah
Love that? Yeah, James, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.
James
Yeah, no worries. Thanks for having me.
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