Artificial Intelligence Podcast: ChatGPT, Claude, Midjourney and all other AI Tools

 Is It Even Possible To Hire People Anymore With Traci Austin

• Jonathan Green : Artificial Intelligence Expert and Author of ChatGPT Profits • Episode 380

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Welcome to the Artificial Intelligence Podcast with Jonathan Green! In this episode, we delve into the complexities of the modern hiring process with our guest, Traci Austin, a renowned expert in talent acquisition and HR strategy.

Traci shares her insights on how AI has transformed the hiring landscape, from resume optimization to AI-driven interviews. She emphasizes the enduring importance of personal relationships in hiring and how candidates can stand out in a crowded job market. Traci discusses the challenges companies face with AI-generated resumes and applications and offers practical strategies for both job seekers and hiring managers to navigate this new terrain.

Notable Quotes:

  • "Hiring is still about the relationship and how you can build those relationships with recruiters." - [Traci Austin]
  • "Showing persistence means you actually want the job." - [Jonathan Green]
  • "Culture is the behaviors that you allow or don't allow inside your organization." - [Traci Austin]
  • "If I'm messaging you, it's usually because there's an emergency." - [Jonathan Green]

Traci highlights the necessity of understanding organizational culture and defining success metrics clearly for both employers and employees. She advises job seekers to engage directly with recruiters and leverage employee referral programs to improve their chances of success in the hiring process.

Connect with Traci Austin:

Traci offers valuable insights into internal promotions and the importance of setting clear expectations to foster a thriving workplace environment. If you're navigating the evolving job market or are responsible for hiring, this episode is packed with actionable advice!

Don't miss this insightful discussion if you want to learn more about the impact of AI on hiring and how to effectively build strong workplace relationships.

Connect with Jonathan Green

Is it even possible to hire people anymore? We're gonna find out with today's amazing special guest, Traci Austin. Welcome to the Artificial Intelligence Podcast, where we make AI simple, practical, and accessible for small business owners and leaders. Forget the complicated T talk or expensive consultants. This is where you'll learn how to implement AI strategies that are easy to understand and can make a big impact for your business. The Artificial Intelligence Podcast is brought to you by fraction aio. The trusted partner for AI Digital Transformation at fraction A IO, we help small and medium sized businesses boost revenue by eliminating time wasting non-revenue generating tasks that frustrate your team. With our custom AI bots, tools and automations, we make it easy to shift your team's focus to the tasks that matter most. Driving growth and results, we guide you through a smooth. Seamless transition to ai ensuring you avoid costly mistakes and invest in the tools that truly deliver value. Don't get left behind. Let fraction aio o help you stay ahead in today's AI driven world. Learn more. Get started. Fraction aio.com. Now Traci, I'm so excited to have you here because in my personal opinion of all the things AI has damaged, not any specific career, it's the hiring process because everyone is using AI to generate resumes, AI to optimize resumes, AI to help fund interviews and hiring managers are using AI to analyze and scan employees and. Do all this revision. So now it's like an AI writes the resume and AI reads the resume and it's like the human part is getting removed. And that's why we're seeing people say, oh, I sent in 500 resumes and we have 10,000 applicants and we can't find what we're looking for. It's actually harder to get hired and harder to hire now. And so as someone who like this is your world. What do you see as like the future and what is, what are people gonna learn over the next 20 minutes? What's the game changer that they're gonna experience and why they need to listen to this amazing episode with you? Yeah, they're gonna experience that hiring is still about the relationship and how you can build those relationships with those recruiters and really learn about what is there to determine if you have the right skillset. And right values for that organization. So you know, very specifically, are you a fit to the role? Are you a fit to the culture? And are you a fit for the manager? Because if you don't want to be there, it's not going to be a good outcome for you. So one of the things I've heard recently is that a lot of companies post. Jobs that they don't wanna hire anyone for. Like they post these false hiring jobs and they do it either to make their current staff worried that they're gonna get replaced or to think that they're gonna get more help, but it's not coming. How true is that? I will name, I've not necessarily seen that, but if that's the rumor that you're seeing and you're seeing roles not get filled, I would say, are you in the right culture for you? And this is where we get into the culture conversation, and we always have a choice about the cultures that we join. And if that's the culture of the organization, I don't know about you, Jonathan, but that is not an organization that I wanna work for. So my choice would be to go find something different. Yeah, I just think that. They're, because everyone's applying for so many jobs, they're going well, it doesn't seem like they're hiring anyone. And having been through a process where I've hired 10 or 15 people in the past year, it's really hard. To hire people, because a lot of people, it feels like their plan is to just last two weeks or four weeks before you realize they're completely unqualified and they just wanna give those first two paychecks and that, and they apply for jobs that they're horribly underqualified for, and they use AI to answer questions, and they think they can just use chat, GPT, do everything. It's I already have chat GPT, I don't want that. I want a person, and that's really what I see happening. And that's more at the lower and intermediate levels, but even at the higher levels, there's this. Just temptation to modify your resume so that it fit, because now you can say, oh, tweak my resume to fit this job application, and use language that sounds like they use in their post. But the AI wrote their post too, so it's not even written by them. But I guess my first question is how can someone start to stand out again or to be noticed when there's thousands of applicants for every job right now where it just feels so crowded? Absolutely. And it's not through the application process itself. It is, if you're doing it through LinkedIn, reach out to the recruiter, send them a note and say, Hey, I just wanna chat a little bit about this position before I apply for it, because I really want to ensure that it's, that I wanna learn a little bit more about the organization. I've seen this, and this on your post. Something I really like, start up a conversation with that. If you're applying for positions that. Are the lower level positions, and I don't like that terminology, but like the entry level roles. Find folks that work there. And what I mean by that is, hey, who in your network is already working there? Ask them specifically about the organization, about the culture, what they like about it, what they don't like about it. Ask them if they're willing to refer you into the organization. Most organizations have something called an employee referral program where they actually give the person referring a new higher end. Dollars for that. So when you get a referral into an organization from a current employee, in a way, you already have a step up because you're being vouched for, from someone internal inside of the organization. Therefore, I'd say, make sure you're doing your research and really finding out information about the organization before you apply for it. Does this take a little bit longer? Sure. But guess what? When you're working at an organization, you're spending a significant amount of your time there and it's going to be much more fulfilling for you if it's an organization that actually aligns with what you like to do, that fit to role for the job, and that your values are aligned to that organizational culture. I think this is a really critical point, what you brought up that is so good, which is. Everyone. When I try to hire now, the first thing I do is ask all my employees, do you know anyone who can do this? And before I post the job. And the reason I do that is because it's so I now it's less work for me because the person's probably a good fit because they're not gonna refer someone they don't think can do it. It's better for the person because when you're in there, that means it's you or. It's a yes or no, not you or someone else. And I know when I'm applying for something, I would rather it be a yes or no me, not me, or versus a thousand.'cause I don't wanna be in like a tournament. That's where you end up doing three to five interviews. Like all the best hiring happens before the job is posted. And this is really a critical element I've noticed as well that like now in our culture, we have less and less human interaction. People are afraid to talk to strangers. So if you're willing to do that. Like you can open so many doors with such a small amount of effort. Like the minimum requirement for a normal conversation has dropped a lot because people don't talk to each other anymore. Everyone's talking online. So if you can just say like basic stuff, now you're in the game. You don't even have to have a very good personality anymore. Like you just have to have a personality. And this is really, I think it's such a huge opportunity and it's really being missed, which is that people. Missed that they think of LinkedIn first, people just thought LinkedIn's where you copy and paste your resume, like your profile is just your resume or now it's where you post some of your like some small amounts of content, but it really is about relationship building, which is that like people respond. I'll tell you this right now, nobody on LinkedIn has a bunch of unread messages. Everyone clicks on every message. Unlike your email I have 10,000 unread emails. I don't have any unread LinkedIn message. Yeah. Even when it's a LinkedIn email, InMail because you get way less and because you know it's from the person. Like it's not a wonder you don't know. You never don't know who sent the message. You always know on LinkedIn. So I think that's really good advice. I love that. Which is take a moment to figure out. Who works there? What is this job expert? Because now instead of sending 400 resumes, you can just apply for 10 companies in the same amount of time. But that you've found someone there and a referral that's a game changer. And it's really not as hard to get one as you thought. Yeah. Because people go, oh, you seem pretty cool and you're a person. And you're not gonna do that. That's something that's someone who's completely, horribly underqualified. It's not gonna go to that much effort. Those are the ones who are really machine gunning out all their applications. I love that. So can I see for people who are. Yes, please. I love it. So my son just started his freshman year of college and he applied for a lifeguard position on campus at the recreation center. And these are like, they're really hard to come by, right? And so he sent in his resume and his cover letter and I helped him write it. We didn't use ai, we actually wrote it and he got a letter of recommendation from his aquatic director for the Y that he worked at. At home anyway. So as soon as the application period closed, he is mom, I haven't heard anything. I said have you gone down to the pool and talked to any of the lifeguards? No. So the next day he's mom, I wanna talk to one of the lifeguards today. I said, okay, cool. What did they say? He took my name and he gave my information to the manager and told the manager that I had stopped by. I said, cool. What was the manager's name? So he told me the name. I said, great. I said, did you email the manager or call him? He's no, not yet. The next day goes by, he is mom, I emailed the manager. I haven't heard anything back. What should I do? I said did you stop in when you know the manager's working? We're on time number three of in person here, right? He's no, but I'll run over there today. So he ran over there. The manager wasn't in, and then he sends me this email on Friday that says, congratulations. Your persistence got you the job. Can you come in next week and do the skills test? Yeah, that, I think there's something about that, which is so great. It's so amazing. You said actually you suggested, which is so rare, like you actually listen. That's amazing. First of all, it's amazing kids, Jonathan, and I know you do too. I know, but I just wanna highlight that you've done a great job there because that's something a lot of kids would be like, that sounds too hard or that sounds too because it's outside your comfort zone. To go. And people think that being persistence is being annoying. I hired someone once after the 13th email to me, 'cause I kept forgetting to respond. There's a huge difference between a no and a no response. Yes. Now, if you're cold emailing, trying to sell me something, please. Three is enough emails that you don't need. 13. But it's. Very valuable.'cause if someone's gonna be persistent, means they actually want the job. The thing that. Hiring, at least I hate the most, is that hiring takes me about six weeks and then I have to train the person. I don't wanna have to do it again a month later. So I wanna hire people that will stay with me for years, not for weeks. It's very frustrating to go through that whole process, hire a candidate, and then they quit, or no show or something. Wonky happens in the first month and now you gotta start all over again. So showing persistence means you actually wanna be there. And that's real. Exactly. That's why they respond to that. So it's like there's a lot of things that show if you can show you really want the job.'cause there's nothing worse than like you hire something, oh, I took a job somewhere else, or I'm not that interested. Or actually I want a different salary than what you said in the job listing. And it's okay, why are we doing all this? Like just the job listing was the truth. It wasn't like I have a secret budget. It's like this is what the budget is for this position. I think this. Is a really good lesson now for people who are on the other side of it. For hiring managers or people in your industry who are trying to find candidates, how do you what are some changes like now I've noticed when I interview people, I have to ask weird questions that they haven't used AI to prep. So when I'm asking, for example, I'm asking a coder like how they solved a problem. I'm like how did you feel? And what were the wrong things you did along the way and what was frustrating about that? Problem for you because the AI won't add that. As you mentioned, it doesn't have empathy, doesn't, that's so you're always trying to find, because you'll get people and you can I didn't, I was interviewing someone in their glasses. I could see the reflection of ChatGPT. Bt I was like, you should wor your contacts. I can see you doing it. Yeah. And it's not cool. Like one that's, and it's like I, this is something I've never done, but we're, now they, if you do a Zoom interview, ask 'em to stand up to see if they're actually wearing. Work pants or if they're wearing pajama pants in a tuxedo shirt. I didn't know people do that. It's like once a trend hits TikTok, I guess hiring managers have to respond. It's like this offense and defense respond. So what are some things that hiring managers can do or HR people can do, or head hunter can do to find the good candidates amongst all this swirl of. Yeah, for sure. Candidates that don't really want the job. Yeah. So there's a couple of things that we do very specifically. One is we create a scorecard for candidates that looks at three key areas. One is the head, are they the right? Behavioral fit for the job itself. So we use an assessment called predictive index. There's lots of assessments you can use for hire. There's lots you can't. So just know the difference, especially if you're in the US of what you legally can and cannot use. But it's really helpful to know Hey, this job's super, super detail oriented and this person is as well. So that's one. And then the second one is we always interview for culture. And this is something where if you take your core values and create interview questions around that is going to tell you if they're going to be a cultural fit for your organization or not. Then of course you have like your knowledge, skills and abilities questions that can be a little bit easier to do with that chat GPT. But one of the things that I typically do at the beginning of the interview is say, Hey, I am. You know what's important to us here within our organization is the relationship. Therefore, my request is that we're using no chat GPT throughout this interview. Processes. That's something that you can agree with. So we're naming expectations upfront, and I do think that it's becoming more and more important that we're naming upfront what our expectations are and are not. Because otherwise, guess what? Folks are coming up with their own definitions. So if we say, this is what good looks like, if we don't define what that is, they may have a different definition of it. And so doing that right upfront in the interview process of naming definitions and then walking through it and saying, Hey, if this is something that you don't agree with, great. We're just not a great cultural fit. Then we're naming it right upfront. Before we go any further, I think this is so good because there's this assumption that words mean the same thing to you, and they mean the same thing to someone else. And I learned this lesson in the weirdest way, my friend. When I was in my mid twenties, he goes, oh, whenever I ask a girl be a girlfriend, I say, what does girlfriend mean to you? And I said, what doesn't mean the same thing to everyone? I thought boyfriend girlfriend is a universal, meaning, turns out not true. Every person I've ever asked the question to, every lady's given a completely different answer. Uhhuh, right? And it's the whole spectrum, like from, oh, I'm, it's just you and me as long as we're in the same city. I was like, what? That one really surprised me too. You know what I mean too? We have to live together to, we see each other twice a week or two. If I text, you have to respond in three minutes. Everyone has their definition. I was like, I learned that and I've worked at companies where if we don't say what a word means, it leads to all of these problems because people, if it's a technical term, it has these different meanings and they come really important. So I think, I love that you just call it out and say, listen, we're looking for you to not use ChatGPT. We're so afraid to. Say what we mean Or anything else that's AI related. Sometimes you have to be very specific, right? Yeah. Spirit of the law versus letter of the law. And this is something I know that a lot of people, the problem most people have with their first hire, the first time they hire someone, when they're going from entrepreneur, their first employee, is that they don't give the person a definition of success. Correct. And that's I know this. Every, someone say, I hired my first va. And I go, you, if you don't have your SOPs, which most people don't record themselves, right? You don't have that. And if someone doesn't know if they're doing a good or bad job, then they're gonna be very agitated or very stressed, and then you're gonna be disappointed in the results. And it's it's not your fault. It's not their fault it's yours.'cause they don't, they're not getting grades, right? So if I hire someone and say, run my social media, they go, what does that mean? You go, I don't know. Of course they're, you'd have, they could do anything and you have to say, I expect this many views per week, or this many clicks and this many posts and that these are the results I look for and these are the efforts that tell me you're working towards. You have to give people those metrics and it makes sense to bring that into the hiring process, which is a. This is what I'm, this is what success means, or this is what we're looking for. And I find the culture question, culture has such a different meaning to everyone. The fact that you take a moment to define it, I think is really powerful is to say, this is what I'm looking for. There are certain things that I do now I'm realizing that they what they mean, and like when I hire someone, I say, listen, do you want me to pay you per hour? Or per task, and I say per hour means I have to put like a screenshot thing on your computer and measure your hours and do all that. That's extra work for me. I don't want anyone to choose this and I, I'm certainly not turning on your webcam, which some people do. I'm not interested in watching you. I don't care what hours you work, but what I would rather the other choices, every Monday you say, these are the things I can get done this week. And then on Friday you say, I got them all done. Then I go, okay, you did a week's worth of work. So we've agreed what a week's worth of work looks like at the beginning of the week. And then I pay for that at the end. Yeah, that, switching to that, because, and sometimes I always say what hours do you want me to work? And I said, I don't care. Not your dad. I don't want to, but my only requirement is that if I message you seven days a week, I want you to respond within 24 hours. So if I message you on Saturday, sometime between Saturday and Sunday and one response, I feel like that's reasonable. I don't expect you, if you're out with your family, you don't have to reply. No way. You don't have to reply in real time. You have 24 hours. That's the tradeoff.'cause if there's, if I'm messaging you, it's usually there's an emergency of some kind. So those kind of, I try to put those expectations up front. So if you wanna work 40 hours straight Monday and Tuesday and then take five days off, that's fine for me. You're in control. And that shifts because I used to try, when you have everyone remote and you take, you have to, it's extra work for you to manage all of that and track their time. And everybody remote working always rounds up. So seven and a half hours becomes eight hours, then seven hours becomes eight hours, then six hours becomes eight hours. And that's the culture that I found that eliminated all those problems for me. But it starts with, like you said, setting those expectations as early in the relationship as possible. You can't shift. Six months in or then bring in culture. So I really love that. Yeah. For, so I wanna hit on something you said and put a name to it. And so the distinction between an output and an outcome, an output is like, Hey, I sent out, 72 social media posts. Okay, great. I really care about the outcome is did those things turn into. Clients or did they turn into what is the result you want? And what I find within this is when we can define the distinction between an output. Jonathan, you and I are recording a podcast today. This is an output. The outcome that we both want from this podcast is to expand our reach by X percentage, or, bring in a new lead or whatever it is, right? Educate someone on this, that changes, the impact that they're having inside of their organization. So when we can name the distinction between an output and an outcome, what it does is it brings meaning into the work that we're doing, and when that meaning is tied to someone where that's the impact they wanna make. Guess what? It shifts how we work because we're no longer doing it just for a paycheck. We're doing it because it gives us fulfillment in the work that we do. Yeah, I think that's really good. It's often when there's it's a tough, when it's a tough job market, it's like you just jump on whatever, whoever will take you at first. And. If you can get people that wanna be there and see where you're going and can do things that they wanna do and know what they're supposed to be doing, and know if they're doing a good job. Because it's very stressful if you're an employee and you don't know the expected result. If you have someone who, let's say they're doing sales calls and you don't tell them how many sales you expect a week. And then you're like, Hey, you're underperforming. They're like, what? You didn't gimme a metric? That's why metrics are valuable. And they say, and it can be, you didn't. And it could be you didn't do enough calls for how many calls are we supposed to do? And this is why exactly. You're supposed to do this many calls and get this result.'cause those are two different things. I think that's really helpful for people. And even now there's a lot of, I dunno if this is the right word, but mission creep, which is where you, your job is not what you were hired to do anymore. I worked for a project recently where everyone was doing something outside of their resume and I was like, what is happening here? This is not, that never works. I was like, let's have everyone work outside their area of excellence. Yeah. Everyone's not what they were hired for. So it's like a constant state of frustration and when people are. In that state where they're not sure, that's when they're blasting out resumes all the time. Yep. Like just because someone's working there doesn't mean they're not doing other things. And if they don't feel fulfilled or they don't know what they're doing or why they're doing it, like it's very frustrating to be doing something all the time. Go, I don't even know why I'm doing this. That's when your mind starts to wander. So I like that, this idea that, 'cause a lot of people think culture means ping pong tables and pizza parties and like employee appreciation day and like all things that feel to me like. Things nobody wants. I'd rather have the money or a day off, right? Like employee, I think employee appreciation day should be like a three day weekend. Let's, that's if you really appreciate me, like that's, and I, that's the culture I try to create for my employees. I'm like, I don't want you watching me and I won't watch you. We got our stuff done and I don't care what hours you work. But understanding that culture is not. Most people think culture is like the like external stuff for the effects or the smallest components of it. It's like culture is really like, how do we feel every day and do I want to be here and do I know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it? So I think it's really good to narrow it down to that, to understand that it's more than like the fun parts. Yeah. Here's how we define culture. Culture is the behaviors that you allow or don't allow inside your organization. That's it. So if we think about that, the what? What is the culture that we want? We want an organization where we work really hard, but yet we play hard too. We want an organization that's built on high trust, meaning. I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do. High trust also means Jonathan, like if I disagree with something, I feel comfortable to bring forward and name an opposing opinion and name something that and the reason why, and I'm given the airspace and the humanity to actually have those conversations. That is how we create our culture is what are the behaviors that we. Want in our culture, and do we allow behaviors that go against that? If we do, we're not creating the culture we want. And that's where, as leaders, we have to create that change and that happens in hiring. And another part of hiring that we haven't yet talked about is internal hiring. When there's positions that become available, if you're not looking internally first for those, in a way, you're doing a disservice to your current employees. And it says a lot about your culture. So are we looking to promote folks from within because we know folks are leaving. Between every three and seven years. Can I restart that clock every day? Of course I can, but my mindset to that has to be different, and I have to show in my actions that I'm interested in hiring within. I think that we. For, we put people into a pigeonhole sometimes they go, oh, this is their job. But we never think that they wanna do more. They want more from it. I always try to see, and some people don't want to go into management, and I always try to ask that what is your goal? Where do you wanna be five years from now? Some of those things to see what do they aspire to, what level of control they have. And people will often surprise me, and I think that's important. I think of, and I wanna hear your opinion on this, I think of culture as company culture as what happens in the absence of leadership. Which is what happens when the boss doesn't come in. And this is much more important with remote work where the boss is never in, because I've seen places where if there's a meeting and the C until the CEO gets there, everyone's just like telling jokes and not doing anything instead of getting the meeting done. Or Hey, what did you do over the weekend? And I'm like, what are we doing here, Mike? I, when I'm in a meeting, I always look at how many people in the room and I think about everyone's salary per hour, and then I think what the meetings cost. This is how I think very analytical. I'm like, what are, I don't, this is very expensive to hear about your weekend. So I think, will my team keep working? For example, let's say I had no power for two days over the weekend, right? Will my employees keep working if they don't hear from me for two days? Or will they stop working? That is part of it. And I think, like you said, it's all part of. Are we rowing in the same direction? And do I feel a sense of fulfillment and do I feel a future here? So I like all of that stuff a lot. Now for people who are. Trying to get hired or trying to find people to bring into their company. I know that's really your field of expertise. Where can people find some of the things you've been writing about online and some of the things you do and just find out all the amazing stuff that you do, Traci? Yeah, absolutely. So you can find us on LinkedIn. We do have a LinkedIn newsletter. And that you can find at Traci Austin or Elevated Talent Consulting. And then we have a podcast out there called the People Strategy Podcast that has about 215 episodes, so there's a lot of good stuff in there as well. That's amazing. Thank you so much for being here, Traci. I'll make sure we put that in the show notes and below the video For everyone who's watching, thank you for being here for another amazing episode of the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you never miss another episode. We'll be back next Monday with more tips and strategies on how to leverage AI to grow your business and achieve better results. In the meantime, if you're curious about how AI can boost your business' revenue, head over to artificial intelligence pod.com. Slash calculator, use our AI revenue calculator to discover the potential impact AI can have on your bottom line. It's quick, easy, and might just change the way. Think about your business while you're there. Catch up on past episodes. Leave a review and check out our socials.