‘Adapt or die’: A recruiter’s survival guide

We all know that in a time of Darwinian upheaval, the only thing that survives is the platypus. But faced with a sink or swim scenario, how can recruiters and HR teams survive and thrive? This week we share some pearls of wisdom from a top talent pro.

Podcast: Survival strategies from a Wolt leader

In the latest Scaling Stories podcast, we caught up with Robbie Simpson, Global Head of Country Operations (Talent Acquisition) at Wolt, the food and merch delivery platform.

Robbie previously led a globally distributed recruitment team at HelloFresh, and as someone who’s made the transition from a recruiting specialist to an impressive all-rounder, Robbie instinctively understands the changing landscape of the hiring market. And boy, how the times are a-changin’...

It’s a sad fact that in today’s challenging environment, recruiters have been some of the first to lose their jobs. Or as this Wall Street Journal article points out: “Tech companies that have cut jobs have, on average, slashed about 50% of their recruiting staff, compared with, for instance, 10% of software engineers and 12% of product and design staff.” In some cases, these layoffs have been unceremonious to say the least. Moreover, the recruiters who’ve kept their jobs may find themselves busier than ever.

In this context, Robbie has some words of advice for how hiring teams can revamp their processes and adapt.

“When we think about recruitment as a product, we should think about pain and gain”, Robbie says. On the employer side, that means asking, “what’s the pain someone’s willing to go through to get the gain.

The pain might involve filling in a hiring request sheet, or previously time-stretched candidates finding time to complete assignments; as the market has changed, some candidates are willing and able to take the time to complete these.

From the candidate’s perspective, the ‘gain’ may have changed too. Previously, people were looking to move job for more responsibility or money, for example, but now, “the gain might just be having a job which is stable, which means that the pain you’re willing to go through might be slightly higher”.

Therefore, as Robbie suggests, because the market environment has changed so dramatically, the recruitment product may need to adapt dramatically too. While your customers are the same people, their needs and desires are now different.

Making your team ‘data literate’

In a challenging hiring environment, it may be tempting to think of automation as a silver bullet. But according to Robbie, “data-driven recruitment” is only as effective as the work you put in behind the scenes, because it “has to link to your values”.

“When I think about why I’m data driven, it’s because I think about my personal values and what I want to do professionally – which is to provide a fair recruitment process that’s respectful, equal, [delivers] dignity and overall just feels good. I need data to justify that.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Robbie also talks about the importance of “making your team data literate”, especially when “many of us don’t come from traditional science or mathematical backgrounds. And we were just expected to be able to interpret and build a story around data without really understanding how to point out what’s wrong”.

“Measure what matters,” Robbie says. “What matters to your team, and what matters to your organisation? Pick one or two metrics that are related to your values and just focus on that for a time period.”

Robbie also discusses the differences between a performance-driven and results-driven culture, and how focusing too much on individual KPIs – rather than a “team driving towards a goal” – can create a “toxic environment where people start to gamify the system”.

“When I think about good culture, it’s more about performance-driven culture. The end result might be hiring, but they’re always interested in ‘how are we getting there? How are we improving? Is the time to hire going down? Is the candidate experience going up?’”

Be like bamboo

In these stormy economic times, one of the lessons of Robbie’s approach is that recruiters can no longer be solely specialists. For example, you can’t simply be a ‘recruiter for product managers’ – you may need to recruit for whatever the business needs, whether it’s a barrister or barista. Robbie is a big believer in making recruitment more aligned to the rest of the business, and the value in investing time in people so they can move laterally within organisations.

“I always refer to it as like the stick and bamboo models,” Robbie says. “When you’ve got a stick, if you have lateral pressure on it, it snaps and, and that’s what we’re seeing with some recruiters – when you ask them to source for a marketing role, they’re unable to source for marketing because they’re not invested in the core skills. But an excellent recruiter is like bamboo. They’re able to grow at a rapid rate… they’re able to bend and contort themselves around and move towards the environment so they’re always going upwards. Unlike a stick – yes, it might break, it might have a large crack… but it’s still able to function because you’ve put in that time to make sure that it’s completely solid and the people are adaptable.”

Robbie shares more useful insights than you can shake a bamboo stick at, so head over to our pod page and listen for yourself!

Recruit a recruiter

It’s recruiter-geddon out there, but here’s some good news: First Round Capital have launched Recruit a Recruiter – ‘a resource for recruiters and startups to find each other’. It’s described as “a homegrown course, designed to teach the foundations to those looking to make a career switch into tech recruiting”. Read more on their LinkedIn post (shown below).

The rise of the robot recruiters

Recruiters – it looks like we’re finally being replaced by bioengineered humanoids from Blade Runner. Or something like that. A leaked Amazon memo suggests that the tech giant may be looking to replace human recruiters with AI software to screen applicants, reports Recode by Vox. 

“Tech titans like Amazon are looking to tighten their belts, seemingly in part by delivering on long-term bets that technology, and AI in particular, can do what humans do – and maybe more cheaply.”

Please sign on the dotted line

For an insight into just how century-defining AI will be, look no further than this AVC blog by Fred Wilson.

“ChatGPT has effectively ended the essay as a way for teachers to assess student progress. It will be easier for a student to prompt ChatGPT to write the essay than to write it themselves.”

The solution to this conundrum? Fred writes: “I think we will need to sign everything to signify its validity. When I say sign, I am thinking cryptographically signed, like you sign a transaction in your web3 wallet.”

Latest HR Trends Report

The Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR) has released its 2023 HR Trends Report. It’s essential reading for HR leaders, and covers various trends for our time – from investments in deskless workers to the rise of algorithmic HR.

Spicy takes

Here are some opinions that are spicier than a Spice Girls reunion:

• Reports of Twitter’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, according to Mike Solana’s article on the “tech civil war”. Regarding the battle between Apple and Elon Musk, Solana writes: “If the company does escalate, my perhaps controversial opinion is I’m betting on the guy currently building his own world, powered by his own grid, circled and connected by his own satellite network, linked to earth by his own rocket system, which he lovingly talks about on his own social media platform.”
• We’re living through momentous times, just like…every other time since recorded history began. If you want to understand how financial bubbles expand (and burst), it’s well worth making a mocktail and watching Ray Dalio’s YouTube explainer on “dealing with the changing world order”.
• A fatal culture of complacency has seeped into Bay Area tech giants (and startups), claims serial entrepreneur David Friedberg (see below).

Recruiting fail

They say all’s fair in love and war, but perhaps leveraging the war in Ukraine as a recruiting opportunity (below) is a bit much. Or as this LinkedIn post puts it eloquently: “I know it is tough for agency recruiters out there, but sending prospecting messages claiming you are ‘helping’ people caught up in the Ukrainian war, and then sending a follow-up message to say you only charge 25% is an awful sales technique.”

Goodbye for now

Thanks for reading Intrro #44. As always, share this newsletter with your network and we’ll be back soon!