If you’ve been in TA for a while, then you’ve probably come across Dominic Joyce on LinkedIn. As a LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 50,000 followers, an experienced CV-coach, and a decade of experience in TA leading teams at the likes of HSBC, Reed, Klarna and mostly recently as Head of Talent Acquisition at Travelex, Dom is a leader whose opinion you’ll want to hear. 

Having reviewed over 100,000 CVs and helped more than 600 candidates cut through the noise, Dom offers a candidate-centric voice in the debate about the future of talent acquisition… and a different take to the one many of us may be used to hearing. 

Join Dominic and Robert Newry for episode one of Season two of the TA Disruptors podcast as they discuss…

💪 Why skills-based hiring doesn’t mean hiring people with exact match hard skills, why functional skills (organisation, ability to measure), core strengths (resilience), and the ability to acquire future skills (learning agility, cognitive ability) are most critical, and ideas on how to select for them 

🚀​ Ways to get started with skills-based hiring without having to create and tie a bow on a perfect skills-taxonomy, and why collaborating with hiring managers could be the answer 

💡 What a successful pilot of a skills-based hiring process could look like, how to structure it, develop a new interview process, and set yourself up for a wider rollout 

🤝 Why the TA and L&D are such a power couple –– how to work together to ensure an exceptional employee experience, improve retention rates, and guarantee ‘boomerangs’ 

💰​How salary transparency can help you qualify in good fit candidates and out poor fit ones… and why TA teams need to drive the conversation about money  

We promise it will be the most valuable podcast you listen to this week. 

Listen to the episode here 👇

Podcast Transcript:

Robert: Welcome to the TA Disruptors podcast. I'm Robert Newry, CEO and co-founder of Arctic Shores, the task-based psychometric assessment company that helps organisations uncover potential and see more in people.

We live in a time of great change and TA disruptors who survive and thrive will be the ones who learn to adapt and iterate and to help them on that journey. In this podcast, I am speaking with some of the best thought leaders and pioneers who are leading that change.

In this second series of the podcast, I'm focusing on skills-based hiring. And today I'm very excited to be welcoming Dominic Joyce, who is head of talent acquisition at Travelex, but also a significant LinkedIn voice, I think a top voice in LinkedIn for last year. And I heard over 8 million views across the whole of 2023 for your various bits of content, which is something that I could only dream about in a lifetime, let alone in a year. But clearly, you are somebody who thinks about this world of talent acquisition a lot, and people like to engage with the way that you think about it and challenge people a bit on it. And one of the things that I'll call upon today, which I think is part of what you bring to the world of talent acquisition, is he huge experience that you've had in this space over 10 years in the talent acquisition field, mostly in financial services. But I read one point that you have reviewed over 100,000 CVs, again, probably something only in a lifetime could I ever dream about. But also I know that you've not just looked at CVs, but you've also actually helped people in how they can improve their CVs and what makes a good CV to help somebody get a job. So with that in mind, Dom, I'm really excited to have you here and welcome to the TA Disruptors podcast.

Dominic: Thank you for having me. That was an intro and a half. I'm flattered, slightly blushing as well. I've done a lot in 10 years. It's surreal when you sort of sit back and then look at what you've done and people you've helped, the views you collated, and yeah, I remember meeting you a few years back at an event and we're here today finally. 

Robert: We are, we are, and we both share in a passion to change the way things get done. And I think that's, we connected when we first met on that, that we do need to change the status quo. And there's a lot of things that we do and have done in talent acquisition that we take for granted, but perhaps we should challenge ourselves a bit more about that.

So let's start off on that point about 100,000 CVs, because I just think that is mind blowing in terms of a number, but the amount of time you've been staring at white bits of paper and trying to understand who's good, who's not good, should you take them forward, are they a fit or not a fit? Let's maybe break down what the CV actually does for us in terms of its purpose.

And a bit of it is, it's a bit of data about the person and whether that bit of data matches what we're looking for. And in a world that we're living in now, which is much more adaptive and fast-paced than it was for particularly anything to do in a knowledge-based role. Then the data that we need on somebody to then decide in that 10 seconds or whatever it might be hopefully a bit longer than that because think that most candidates feel that if they put in hours worth of effort into an application at 10 seconds for that to be considered as to whether they're, which is the reality of where we are now, is not fair to any party on this. So we have to think then, well, what is it that we want to measure around all this? What is that piece of data and sets of data that enable us to make that decision? Is this person going to be a good fit for this role?

And I think that's what we need to be challenging ourselves a bit on and then saying, okay, some of it will be a bit of what they've done in the past, which might be sector-specific, it might not be. We could get that from LinkedIn. The other could be that we need to get some data on their cognitive ability, how quick do they learn. And this is one of the things that I think that we've got to understand a bit more is, somebody's intelligence in a role is not just do they have A levels, are they good at maths, are they good at writing things because actually there are really good tools that do that for us. It could be how quickly, how creative are they in their problem solving and we know from examples like the intelligence services, that people who are dyslexic or dyspraxic have very powerful and creative problem-solving skills that are different from neurotypical people which is incredibly useful in those roles. 

So you said you're not sort of quite sure if you experimented at all with alternatives to the CV or you've just not seen today anything that meets that requirement, which is a piece of data that you think is reliable and helps you decide, do you bring forward to an interview or not? 

Dominic: I think you can look at being more open and expansive on perhaps early careers. Yep. Because a lot of that is almost fresh out of university, college, or school. And in reality, you know, I've written 600 CVs and the hardest ones to write are the school leavers because What do you write for them? They just maybe worked in Costa or Gregg's or River Island. And it's like what you can obviously make it functional relate their skills That's the common trade right is you can't really write it based on jobs. They haven't had them, it's like what skills Can you bring to a company?

For early careers, 100% I think, hiring for a CV is a little bit counterproductive because all you're going on is based on their demographic, where they're from, or where they live in, what school they went to, the university, which again, could bring its own bias, right? 

Robert: Totally, it does. 

Dominic: The idea from, I guess, and what we're doing at Travelex is to, in our retail environment, is to peel back the leaf of the CV, whilst we're open to it. If you're in the right location, for one of our bureaus that you're applying to, we'll test you based on your skills. So we used to kind of go for people in banking, given what you did with currency or travel, whereas I was like, well, that's kind of make it broader, because we've got a very, very effective L&D department there that train people up, our managers and so forth train people really well, that makes it more broader, and open the candidate pool, level the playing field.

For example, carers. Carers have to measure out drugs, they deal with difficult patients. We have, you know, not all the time, but the occasional difficult customer. There's a lot of traits and behaviors there that actually mimic that of a role with us, but because I guess they almost look at a role and think, well, it's different to what I've done now, and then they look at the job titles. They don't actually look beyond that and look at the potential of the skill set, or the mindset, when actually that's what's important, right? Is you can bring with you functional skills. 

That's where again the CV can be reverse chronological, I most recent job to first job, or make it functional. We say here's a brief overview of what I've done. It's probably not pertinent to the role where I've worked, but here's my functional skills, communication, objection handling, problem solving, that actually can make you relatable to the role.

Going beyond your job title because you probably wouldn't hire someone in the care sector to work in a bureau based on just looking at job titles and the relation behind it. But break that down and look at they've had to do with a touch with ours, difficult patients customers measuring out vast amounts of critical currency or medicine. There's a lot of similarities there. I think to kind of discuss what you could go beyond the CV, don't use the CV but test some skills and then you set up a robust in-house matrix that you scored them on that's fair, that's just that everyone. If they come from different backgrounds, then they need some adjustments, they're given the time they need. So you make it fair for everyone, and you say, I don't care where you come from, but also, as you point earlier about, we look at CVs for the here and the now, we look at what you've done up until recently, and we look at what you've done for the last five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years.

No one really looks or tests for future skills. Or looking into the future and going, all right, well, what's their current mindset? What's their growth targets? What can they literally bring to us? Which you won't get from a CV. You want to look at the person, is it a desire to basically earn and learn and grow and develop, or they're just there to get a paycheck and go home. And the right testing done in that mindset and framework will almost give you that data that you need to make those informed hiring choices? 

Robert: Oh, I'm totally with you, Dom. And so that's the brilliant thing. I think what you've just articulated so well is why the CV has to change and our relationship with it has to change. Because as you described earlier, that the way it's curriculum vitae, it is literally just a statement of these are the things that I've done, as opposed to what are the functional things that I've done that could be perfectly suitable for a different sector, but actually turns out to be a similar kind of job task that I'm doing. 

I really like your example of the carer measuring out drugs, having to deal with potentially challenging situations when they come up, extended hours, there'll be a resilience in there. Who If you said, oh, send in your CV to go and apply for a bureau role, they're going to go, well, this is a waste of time. Because it, as opposed to if you said, we're not interested in the CV. Have you got these skills good at measuring things? Are you resilient? Could you cope with default? Then I can just go, oh, hang on. That's, that's exactly me. Oh, I get to apply to, to Travelex. Now that's different. I hadn't thought about that, but. That opens up a whole new angle for both the candidate and the employer. So I think you've hit the nail on the head there, which is it's gotta be functional and it's gotta be future skills based in there. Those are the two things. I like those two elements to that. 

So, but the other thing that you mentioned, and I'd like to just explore a bit more around this, is that, okay let's agree now that functional and future skills is what we're going to hire for, and we need to figure out a way, but it's not that hard to enable candidates to present themselves as to how they meet those functional and future skill requirements. What then happens when they join? Because you can hire for potential, get all this right, but if you haven't got a good L&D department and programme around that, then surely it all falls apart. So can you share what you've seen that's worked really well as if you have the potential, how do you then develop and nurture it in the right way? Because a lot of people do early careers, but if we're doing this for bureau staff, that's not early careers. So you've got a different requirement there as to how you achieve that. 

Dominic: I think also the point I made earlier regarding the skill sets, we actually went internally, did a working council. It wasn't TA deciding we're going to hire on these skill sets, like it or lump it. It was like, well, let's hold a working council internally, talk to talent leaders, talk to retail leaders, and say to them, right, what do you deem as being the important skills that will make someone in these roles successful? Multiple choice, right? So we controlled it slightly, but it was a case of, right, like 16 answers, rank your top three. The most common ones that came back were soft skills, not hard skills. The fact that they actually deem things like communication, and attention to detail - important. Those traits can be found in most people. That's in the job they're in. So then we built the skills, offer the actual feedback from internal stakeholders. People worked there for 10, 20 years, people that actually are on the front line and have a say in what's important. Because as TA, we just hire what's on the paper, right? But we were like, let's not go and control this. Let's actually ask people that will work with them day in, day out, the skills they need, the raw talent to make them from good to being great. 

And to your point there as well, L&D and TA need to work hand in glove. I've always said onboarding starts from the day they apply to the job, the day they see the actual advert. But it's also that handover that kind of often a lot of companies neglect, so they just kind of, it's a real soft, like limp handover between TA from offering the job and then start on the business. Robert: So chucking over the wall quite often, isn't it? 

Dominic: Yeah, correct. And let's face it, in retail recruitment, It's quite high nutrition rate there. Yeah. Ours is half of what it is as UK average because of the strong L&D function we have there, right? And the onboarding. And part of this new process in place will be, we'll measure them on a red and a green status. If they're green, we know they're gonna be suitable. If they're red, they haven't met the criteria that everyone's called on. If they're amber, then what to give you on it, do we hire them based on the caveat that we've got to work on these two or three skills that were perhaps under the threshold? And then let the MD team know, right, we're hiring John Smith, he's coming in as this. As part of the actual testing we did, he displayed below-average skills in these areas here. So it's part of the induction, that's put more emphasis on those skills. So it's quite intense, the training they have there. It's in bureaus, it's obviously in-person bit of classroom-led training, but I think that's the reason why you lose people. 

It's because you sit there and you promise all these benefits, this job, and it's this utopian environment that you create, which of course as TA you must do, right? 

Robert: Yeah, an expectation, yeah. 

Dominic: Exactly, I think what helped us, our team too, as well as my TA team, one third of them came from the bureaus. So again, I'm very big on internal mobility, again, higher on a skills-based mindset, could have gone to marketing, got another recruiter from somewhere else, but I was like, no. They perform high in the bureaus, they perform really, really well. Let's give them the chance. They've already done part of the job of recruitment.

So the fact as well that we were transparent, autonomous, and concise of our message about hiring people, we ensured of course that when they did come in, they were fully, as a candidate and now an employee, ingrained in the process to actually learn. L&D obviously fully aware about the brief they're taking on board, not just here's John, good luck, here's John, here's their background, here's what they're gonna be doing, here's what we're looking to basically grow from them.

And also, it could be John's got ambition to in five years time move into a marketing role. Because equally, you want someone to come on board and do a good job, right? And I think we've got 5.8 years, average tenure where we are. It's pretty good, right? I think people do move. We've got a lot of boomerangs too. I think it's because you create that environment of the growth mindset, not just at hiring, but also when they get into the business to upskill, train, empower them as well, right? You want to basically train them that well enough they can leave, but treat them that well they don't wanna leave. That's the kind of goal we're trying to do here. 

Robert: So many interesting things in there. I love the red amber green bit around that. That we, one of the things that always surprises me about talent acquisitions, you go through this process of really understanding somebody through a recruitment cycle. And at the end of it, you in theory as talent acquisition have a view of this person's a great fit, shove them in, this person actually is a pretty good fit but you need to develop them. But very rarely does that scorecard get handed over to the hiring manager and the expectation almost is well the hiring manager must have known that and therefore it's up to them to go and work that through. 

Whereas I really like the way that you formalise that to some extent to say, well we should have that scorecard, we should red, amber, green it, and then that should form part of how we onboard them. And I like your line of onboarding starts the moment they apply as opposed to the moment that they might turn up at their role.

So I think that's a really interesting approach to it. One thing I'd just like to explore a bit further that you mentioned that I also really liked was a lot of people talking about skills-based hiring now and you said that's how you're leaning now. And the challenge for many people is, well, how do I decide what skills are needed? Do we go out across the whole organisation now, get everybody to fill in their skills. And then we go and do some big workforce planning piece and look for the gaps of what we're gonna need in the future and what we've got now and how we might feel some of it internally and how we might need to get some of it externally. Or the other approach, which you seem to imply that you do, is well, actually, why don't we just talk to a few hiring managers and say, what is it actually that you need work with them on this and and not try and create a huge big taxonomy of skills for the organisation. Just do it for that role. Is that how you're approaching it? Or was this just a pilot as it were to see and actually you have got a bigger plan to go and map out all the skills in Travelex?

Dominic: I think you've got to be more careful in other areas of business. You know, accountancy roles. You kind of want someone who's at least doing like an AAT or has worked in needed qualifications. So I think certain roles, you can't perhaps go with the skills based approach. Potentially you could do it alongside qualified candidates, but this is basically a pilot in retail.

So I guess test the waters, look at the quality of candidates that comes in, also the diversity of candidates. As in, you know, we'll try and track that as well as to where they're coming from. They're coming from, you know, perhaps the armed forces, they're coming from medical backgrounds, just to kind of see the range of people, right? So I think it's a case of, it's something a lot of firms need to do now.

Definitely early career talent to understand the course, what it is they're hiring for. Like you mentioned there, we try to then consult internally rather than going to market or paying a company to go and do research for us, like which I'd rather talk to the person who's got the pain point. And be like, what is your pain point now? What is your concerns? What's the skills that you're missing? When you talk to people all day about this, you interview candidates like us all the time for your bureaus, what is it that's missing? Or what are the top qualities you need?

You're then hiring based on the requirements of the business owner, right? Not of someone that thinks they know what the answer is. Hence why I wouldn't then feel comfortable going to market and hiring these roles now without consulting my internet work, because that's where I learn from them. And that's where I'll educate them as well on what the external market's doing. But I need to understand before I go to the external market what I'm looking for. 

Robert: And if you if you just started this, or if you've seen any early results by this more skills-first approach to hiring?

Dominic: So it's in its infancy. It's basically going through a building process now. So we spent Q4 doing quite a long process of consulting internally and making sure that it was the right questions, the right skills, right? Because if I'm going to do this, it's got to land well. And it's got to do well. And yes, if it lands well and it's a success, it's great. Right. Because we make it, you know, a really diverse candidate pool. We make it open to everyone. It's a good new story, right? That's the goal as to what I want to happen.

But if I then just shoehorned it out and just made some fabricated questions, and I think again, that's their first experience with Travelex as a candidate that's new to the process that perhaps wouldn't have applied beforehand. So for me, it's important to make sure that we get the nuts and bolts down. If we come out in Q1, we'll do testing in a certain area first to make sure, again, the quality is there, and that it's slick, there's no point in doing a nationwide rollout and then having to basically firefight problems that turn up. 

So I think anything that's, you know, the business agrees that that's the way forward for identifying talent and that's where for me getting the buying from the business too was great. I wouldn't obviously go rogue and go under the radar and go surprise this is what we're doing now. The actual benefit that they saw too in it was great and the support that I've been given has been great to go and make it a reality. Equal as well there's no real need for like a cost aspect to it. You redesign the industry framework and questions there. So I think yeah it's one of those ones where pilot in retail or you already careers first - where you can really monitor one also, not just the quality of people where they're from, but also their overall experience too, right? Because candidate experience, that's a rifle of topics on LinkedIn, isn't it? People just say, oh, applied for a job, never heard back, or was meant to do five interviews, no feedback. 

So you can look at your biggest promoters, right? Or the tractors, and we get a lot of people that reapply again, because again, of the experience they got as a candidate. 

Robert: Yeah, no, I think that's such an important part of it is to look at the candidate side of it as well if you're going to make any changes and be clear with them. Just on that note actually, you mentioned something earlier about transparency and I think you and I come from the same point on this that more, or perspective that more transparency is good. But it's quite hard to get that right, isn't it? We've seen a lot of debate about salary transparency, for example. So would you be able to kind of share your perspective on that transparency piece and how do you get that right? 

Dominic: I think we are transparent with salaries in the retail framework. Because we let you pay everyone the same salary based on so we'll hire people in the bureaus as managers in set locations, depending on footfall, a set price, right, so there's none of this. You know, you've been doing it for, again, the tenure, right, you've got five experience, we'll pay you this. And that's the thing where you can put a post out on LinkedIn saying why we don't advertise salaries. And just against the raw, I guess, pain of people that have to go for the part of jobs, then get told, oh, it's this and it's less, or I get it, you know, I think certain ATS platforms, certain companies make it hard to apply to a job and don't even have those salaries. 

If you do get a call back you don't find that it's 20K below what you're on now. So I understand the pain points there. Sometimes you can't advertise them because equally people are in similar roles on different money. And if they then saw that what they're on and what's at the market price is 80K, and they're on 60K - I think, let's face it, human nature, you're gonna feel a grief, right? And is it down to managers to say, right, we're going out to market in a role similar to yours, we want someone more senior? Potentially yes.

I think if I ever start a company myself, I would just be upfront from day one, here's what you're all on, here's what I'm on, that way anyone that came in, everyone knew what everyone was on, that way there's transparency there. 

Bigger companies, it doesn't work that way. Equally as well, I think the problem is, people will see a salary and apply to a job. So the data shows that if you put a job on there for a project manager on 100K. You will get probably yes more people who are right for the role based on your requirements and experience you also get people that have seen 100k or a bit of that. People that have come from different backgrounds of course then there I think is a mixture of the motivation on that wanting to work for the company and the roles of motivation and yes we all work to pay bills and have money to enjoy nice things right and the money is a key driver but then you don't want the person the main reason they apply right to be the money. 

I always think that you've got to enjoy where you work and the work that you do and be compensated fairly for it, right? But if you're then going in and you're saying you're paying this, paying that, is that a driver of the money? Because again, we want people that are committed for like two or three or four years, right? And think the culture of nowadays, and it's like an old man, I'm 37, but two or three years, it seems a long time now. That's not really in the grand scheme of things, but trying to get something to stay for that long is difficult, especially when there's money out there to be made. 

Robert: So where have you ended up on that then? So I get both sides of the story and I think you've articulated that well. So what have you decided in your sphere of influence now around all of this to actually do? Do you do it for some roles and then not for others? Or? 

Dominic: So we just advertise no salaries. We obviously make sure that we benchmark right. So the biggest thing is making sure of course that we did no salary, it's not on the adverts, but we know we're paying a market rate or above. Now, the problem you then got then is right, is we're a funny place, because we're kind of payments, we're not really banking, we're financial service, we’re travel, we're not really, we're not like Google, who's obviously, or like Coca-Cola. So it's like, what do you benchmark on? And then you'll put a roll out, and then you'll get someone from Meta, or Google, or Amazon, who rightfully are on Silly Money, and it's like, well.

Again, a little bit of a tenuous hotel, which they were probably not gonna pay what better a pain. You then get people of course that come from perhaps an NGO environment or other sectors that don't always pay the high salaries. So it's a tough one. So we'd always be transparent in phone calls. Or someone's suitable. 

Robert: I was gonna say, so the answer is no salary, something in your case on advert. 

Dominic: But if they ask, you're immediately. We talk about it. I think. Straightforward. I think even if someone does a screening call with us. They don't talk money, we talk money. Because let's face it, we care about, it's your time, right, it's our time. We, recruiters work, it's where we work for the employees, the stakeholders, but also the candidate, because it's our goal to get you to a point of offer, right, that's our goal. We're actually rooting for you, right? We want to get you into our company if you're the right fit, obviously, based on your skills and your background, but this is why we want to be transparent from the offer and go right. 

And again feedback here, no one's entitled to know what you're on now. Yes. That's what your current company deems your services at. But you know yourself what you want. So if I ask you what you want, tell me. If it's gonna work in my budget, I'll tell you. Equally as well, if you won't tell me what you're on, and I'll say, right, it's paying between this and this, will that work? Because that way you're invested, because you know that what you want as one caveat, because you're still finding out how the company's worth your time, and that's what you want. But one pillar is that you know it's gonna be paying what you want.

Now it's a case of, right, it's paying what I want, but are they ethical? Is the role gonna improve and grow me? So I think it's a case of you always having to remain ironically transparent, not perhaps externally, but at least with candidates. There's never this cloak and dagger of, let's get you through a four-stage process, a presentation, a bake-off, you know, of living a dual to the death with the CFO. Then we'll tell you the salary. It's a case of, we'll tell you what it is, that way, again, we know from your side that if you do care for the process too, you're invested by one bit, and as you go through the process, the more people you meet, the more you get this perception of a company, the more you feel actually, yeah, do you know what? The money's good, the company's good, the role's good, so it helps create that, I guess, ongoing credibility for us. 

Robert: Now, I really like that, and I particularly like what you said earlier, and you implied almost that that was obvious, which is we in talent acquisition are rooting for you. I'm not sure that has been what most talent acquisition have seen, well maybe a bit in talent acquisition, but I think a lot of it has been your point earlier, which is a conduit, we're just processing on this, and certainly, from the hiring manager's point of view, they're not rooting, it's like the Spanish Inquisition. It's right, I'm going to challenge you now, which is another reason why I dislike the CV, because there is so much that people are suspicious about in a CV, that the actual interview itself becomes this, well, are you telling me the truth? And it's a bit like the traitors. I've got to go and now find out by through a series of questions, you know, are you faithful or not? And that seems completely wrong for me. 

I really like your mindset around all of this, which is if talent acquisition have done the right job, it means that the people have been brought forward for interview, you should be able to hire any one of them. And I think if we can get to that mindset on that, that how do I bring out your potential, how do I learn something from you that means I can get excited as to why I'd like to work with you rather than the next person, then we deliver a great candidate experience around that as well. 

Dominic: And also as well to add to that as well, we are there to basically tell your story for you. We are storytellers. And again, it sounds cliche, right? But like you give us this bit of paper. And I always say to candidates, I talk to them, I was like, look, you give me a black eye bit of paper about you. Help me bring your story to life to then go and sell it to my hiring manager. Because equally, if I know you're not right, I'll tell you you're not right based on the call we have, right? I'm not gonna sit there and play this whole Willy won't knees sort of card. But help me to help you, is in, right, that bit of paper there won't tell me what we need to know full on, right? It's almost like an appetizer. I'm here to build the main course now and the dessert. And when I send that manager your CV, it's not just here's John's CV, he wants 80K, he can start in two weeks, it's here's John's CV. It was very, very weird how it started, but how it came about. But in these companies, projects have scaled this much, he's done this. Fun fact is also a qualified scuba diver. So you build this almost like personality behind the bit of paper, right? And then that's how… and every recruiter, they've also got their own favorite candidate. And of course, we don't obviously impact that, but we have a little spidey sense of I met so and so he or she or they are a shoe in for the job. And you often get a little bit disappointed when they don't get it. You're so happy someone else gets it right.

A good recruiter will care about getting the right person from the hiring manager, but will also care about building a story on their candidates to get them to the manager. And to be also the blackie here, it is like, so the black star was like, let's match up the contestant with like one, two or three. That is like what we're trying to do right is we're trying to basically take this utopian candidate employing your team and almost from a bit of black and white paper, construct with like clay this ideal person help them go here's your desired candidate and that's what we're trying to do here right so yeah I think a good recruiter will help you bring out your CV or bring out your skills yes to hammer home your potential.

Robert: I love that and and I think that really highlights you know what the role of a good recruiter is here and many different things but to be more positive about how do I bring that story out. And on that point of storytelling, can you share some of your top tips about things to do and things not to do in LinkedIn and telling your story on LinkedIn as a recruiter, I think, as well? 

I speak to a lot of people who say, oh, I wish I could do a bit more on LinkedIn, but I'm a bit nervous about it. And slightly worried that if I put an opinion out there, then how will that reflect on the organization I work for? How will that reflect on me? Will I get inundated with trolls who are quite nasty about it? So if you've had nearly 8 million or so views a post, you've probably been through the good, the bad and the ugly on that. What tips would you give for somebody who's starting to think about, okay, how do I tell a story in LinkedIn in order to improve my positioning in LinkedIn? Because that's going to be an important part of how I find other people and learn about their stories. 

Dominic: I think people buy people, right? Whilst the companies who they work for, you're often the first person they talk to as a recruiter, but you're the ambassador. Often you can attract people through just being yourself and what you talk about and what you share. Or you'll just be the first person they talk to based on a CV they've sent to a job, right? I think I always say type how you talk. So my style's very blunt. That's just what I'm known for. I'll always tell how it is, what's in all. I love a good analogy. I'm not doing like a lot of dating parallels to career advice. 

I think find your voice and don’t get swallowed up in metrics, and likes and reposts. Equally, I started posting, I joined it 12 years ago. I was a business analyst of Virgin Media many millions ago. And I started doing lockdown, posting content about CVs now. You as a recruiter see it from the front and the back end, right, how an ATS works. Educate people, empower people, give out free advice. The best thing about being a recruiter, right, is you're sharing, look, I did a post the other day which got a lot of views. So simplistic, just rename your CV your name, Dominic Joyce CV, because we get literally ones like, you know, ‘spicy ragu pappardelle’. We get ones like ‘Ikea man wardrobes’. And it's true, like, you open it up and it is an Ikea man wardrobe manual, because of lack of care, but I was like, just literally rename your CV, because I've done a 20 from an application. I've got no idea where you are because your little CV XYZ and it's that was so simplistic.

Robert: So the so the quite often when you're downloading the CV then you get the email address or the reference point… the file name - I see they're not even thinking about the file name!

Dominic: Not even so literally if it sounds so simplistic with you down at 20 CVs… someone have the names of them someone which have numbers letters hieroglyphics gang signs the most bizarre kind of like. Just make sure that whatever it is, it's something easy to identify you within your name. So simplistic, right? And that's the first impression. And that got 200 likes, and I was like, I literally just gave the most simplest bit of advice. 

So, also dispel myths that recruiters, candidates don't know about, about when your CV comes in and what happens to it. Because it's not a robot, because we know it's a recruiter looking at it. Educate them on what a good CV looks like based on your opinion. Now recruitment advice, career advice is completely subjective, it's not regulated, it's just what I deem as being what works for me, what's worked for me in the past. 

So I give advice, it's based on what worked for my clients, what worked for the hires that I've been with. So I think recruiters don't wanna get posted more on LinkedIn, just you will get trolls. You get people that obviously will argue with you as well that the sky isn't blue and the grass isn't green, just to kind of cause an argument, but I think. Hold, you know, true to your values, be ethical in your approach. You know, don't blur the lines and things like politics as well, because that's just religion. I've always said those two things you don't really go into. 

Talk about what's important to you, educating and empowering job seekers. I post the occasional picture of my daughter as well, my dog, because again, that's also the human side of me. But I think just also have fun, enjoy it. Don't get wound up in metrics and numbers because that's what you're there for and start posting selfies of you at the beach, topless, or start posting photos of a random - if you want to really add value, give away free content, free advice, free support. As recuriters we get in our inbox, I get 30 a week, here's my CV, help me, or what job is someone good at, I haven't got time, unfortunately, to help you and every person. But if I were to post saying, here's how to not approach a recruiter's inbox, take these notes, that'll help them in the obviously future, not just them, the 30 that emailed me, but also the other 300,000 that could look at it. 

Robert: Yeah, nice idea. So educate, empower, be human, be authentic. Yeah, educate in power and encourage. Okay, I like that, three E's and think through what your voice is and be true to yourself of your own voice and things will just build up on that. But you make a good point, which is, as many people who will be looking at anything you post will be potential candidates, as it is potential people, peers in the industry. And so you actually have got a great opportunity to educate people on that and help move things along.

Dominic: Future employers too, I lost my job at Klarna in the layoffs there. Did a post, I was obviously back in the market, going off to be in there for a year. It had 500,000 views. Because of my network that I created for posting free content, free advice, and I always gave out for free. And the one time that I needed something from my network, they delivered. So I think just curate your network as well, and just give out as much advice as you can, do and support people. And then that obviously broke the narrative that recruiters don't care about anything but making a placement or just ignoring you. So, yeah, I guess be that 1%. 

Robert: That's a lovely, lovely piece of advice on that. And lovely to hear how the network gave back to you after you gave the network all your sort of support and advice over time too. I suppose my final kind of bring it back to GenAI then. How are you using it then? Are you using it to help you write posts or to help write job adverts? What's your take on how you're keeping up to speed on it? 

Dominic: So all my content's written by myself. You can tell in my blunt, brash, weird, bizarre humour and behaviour that's analogous, right, that my content's all my own that I write. I use Grammarly to spell check it so that you use anything in general to be AI, right?

I think there's apps like Textio and other ones that can basically look at your adverts and remove things like masculine words that are just, you can use Jini to kind of formulate perhaps a rejection letter. So if you get given from a manager, here's the feedback and how can I make it less direct and blunt perhaps? So Jini will basically help with that or even just invite someone for an interview. I had a task with my team there. We had to basically construct a rejection letter, email and then put it through GenAI and just kind of see what they learn from it post pre and post. 

I think GenAI obviously will also learn each time right, it gets information. I think, I've always said GenAI is basically your co-pilot. It's there to support you, not to take over your job. So right now, do we use it in our recruitment functions? No, could we in future? 100%. But I think it's a case of if we did it, we'd be doing things that will remove what I call the grunt work. Scheduling interviews, rejecting candidates that apply that aren't suitable before the interview, because they should always get feedback as personal post-interview. 

Anything as obviously like marketing emails around applications and building job adverts and this and that. I think whilst you should obviously utilise it to help and support, don't become self reliant on it and assume that it's okay. And a prime example of that is right now LinkedIn have launched their own AI tool. So basically if you see a job that you like that I'm applying for, it'll construct an AI message and say ‘hi Dom, I've seen your role in this based on my experience of…’, and it then inputs automatically your headline. Now if you're just a CEO, that's great, but if you put ‘CEO I make kick-ass content’, then literally it's gonna input that whole entire string. And then it will then pull skills from your profile that don't necessarily match what the requirements are. So again, that's when AI will almost kind of prompt and preempt you and try and obviously guide you. People then just assume it's gonna do it for you, will come unstuck. Whereas let it support and guide you, but don't let it own you and control you. That's the kind of advice that I probably give. 

So I've used it to kind of construct photos like ChatGPT's function there. It throws out some really bizarre and warped and obscure pictures. I won't lie to you about it. So, again, can accompany a post, but I think, you know, GenAI, it's not it's coming, it's here. It's just how the companies embrace it, use it, and also control it. And you'll start seeing a lot more jobs now as well in the future that are geared towards AI as well. 

Which I think that's a bit of advice too to anyone listening to podcasts, start learning about AI now GenAI educate yourself because of again about skills based… if someone is going to come to a company that knows about AI or GenAI, they're almost like valuable. 

Robert: Great advice, Dom! And I really, really like the just a practical step that you suggested there for TA teams, which is bright. Let's just experiment using it. objection. How do you respond to an objection email they get all the time? Right, let's construct it. Let's see what GenAI or ChatGPT comes up with, compare it, discuss it. I think that's such a good way to think about. We need to learn, we need to discuss, we need to see what's good, what's bad, and all of this. But ultimately, I totally agree with you. It's a tool like a calculator. It's to augment what we do as recruiters. And it'd be a very sad day if AI is doing the job of recruiters, because it has to be a human process for humans to result in a human being hired. And we can never, never lose sight of that. But there's lots of ways that technology and gen AI can help us do that job better, take some of the grunt work out.

Grammarly does one thing on that, but if you want something that's a bit more empathetic or a little bit more friendly, or you know the person is neurodiverse, so how would you communicate with somebody who is perhaps autistic that you've got an objection to deal with there? And then you've got a tool now that can do that, and I think that's a really interesting way to look at it. 

Well, Dom, we've come to the end of our session, but it has been a brilliant one, you’ve given so many interesting and thoughtful perspectives, whether it be from how people should start thinking about the way that they apply for roles, the functional piece to it, the future skills piece, how do you use GenAI, how do you introduce skills based hiring into the organization, and I hope that we can even get a smidgen of the post views that you normally get, but I know people get a lot of really great insights from this and thank you for taking the time to share them with us. 

Dominic: Thank you for having me, I really enjoyed it and great conversation.