WEBINAR: Engaging, not stalking - or how to make eye contact without looking like a maniac

It is pretty easy to toss around phrases like 'HR is the new Marketing' and 'Recruiting is really just sales'. Those chestnuts have been the topic and title of many a blog post, conference presentation, and yes, webinar. But it is a lot harder to think, act, and execute like a marketer that has to find, attract, nurture, and close prospects than it seems on the surface. But fear not my friends, help is on the way to help you amp up your talent attraction efforts and get you executing like the best Madison Avenue big shots.

The gang at Fistful of Talent are back, this time with my friends, (and 'Awesome New Technolgies for HR' selection), from Jobvite for the latest FOT Webinar titled '5 Easy Ways For Recruiters to Engage Talent Pools – Without Looking Like Complete Stalkers' to be presented on October 3, 2013 at 1:00PM EDT.

Sign up for the FREE webinar and the gang at FOT will hit you up with the following:

• A simple definition of what a talent pool is, how you organize it in your ATS, and how to manage the concept of “opt-in” to the people you include in that talent pool.  The definition of who gets included and “opt-in” is important, because you’re gong to broadcast a bit over time– which will feel different (in a good way) to candidates included in the talent pool.
• A checklist of information you already have access to in your company that those passive talent pool candidates would love to hear about.  It’s a checklist!  All you have to do is go find the info we list and you’re golden.
• Data on best practices in thinking like a marketer (do you use email, LinkedIn, snail mail, text, etc.) to engage your talent pool – without looking like a stalker.
• Grand Finale, we’ll deliver the top 5 ways to engage talent pools – and for each engagement method, we’ll list what the communication looks like, where to find the information and why doing it the way we recommend is the best practice

And as a Special Bonus the crew will give you a monthly calendar of what to do and when to do it related to our list of 5 ways for you to engage your talent pool. It couldn’t be simpler than that.

It’s time to make the talent pools you’ve built in your ATS actually like you and your company.  Join FOT and Jobvite on October 3, 2013 at 1pm EST, “5 Easy Ways For Recruiters to Engage Talent Pools – Without Looking Like Complete Stalkers” and they will show you how.

REGISTER HERE:

ODDS: Are you going to be replaced by a robot?

Note: I'm taking one more run down the robot trail today, then I will probably let it go for a while, at least until the robot overlords tell me I need to resurrect the topic again.

Lots of folks, including me, have presented example after example, chart after chart, and anecdote after anecdote all pointing towards a future where more and more jobs that are currently held by people will become automated, roboticized, or rendered unnecessary. But for all the individual examples of this phenomenon, and all the hand-wringing around the issue, I had not ever seen a 'macro' assessment of the topic, i.e., a look at attempting to measure just how many and whay type of jobs are more or less likely vulnerable or susceptible to robot-like automation.

Well a newly released study from researchers at Oxford titled 'The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs To Computerisation?', attempts to do just that - to place a number, (or a target if you are more cynical), on the number and types of jobs that are more or less likely to be automated away in the coming years. 

The study, a collaboration between Dr Carl Benedikt Frey (Oxford Martin School) and Dr Michael A. Osborne (University of Oxford), found that jobs in transportation, logistics, as well as office and administrative support, are at “high risk” of automation. More surprisingly, occupations within and across the service industry are also highly susceptible to automation, despite recent job growth in this sector.

The entire paper can be found here (PDF), and since it is really long, your humble blogger took the liberty of spending Sunday morning reading it for you and I will share with you a couple of choice excerpts below:

Although the extent of these developments remains to be seen, estimates by MGI (2013) suggests that sophisticated algorithms could substitute for approximately 140 million full-time knowledge workers worldwide. Hence, while technological progress throughout economic history has largely been confined to the mechanisation of manual tasks, requiring physical labour, technological progress in the twenty-first century can be expected to contribute to a wide range of cognitive tasks, which, until now, have largely remained a human domain. Of course, many occupations being affected by these developments are still far from fully computerisable, meaning that the computerisation of some tasks will simply free-up time for human labour to perform other tasks.etheless, the trend is clear: computers increasingly challenge human labour in a wide range of cognitive tasks (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2011).

Did you catch that? 140 million knowledge workers, a group that I would expect includes just about everyone reading this post, could be susceptible and threatened by sophisticated algorithms.

And let's not forget about the service and 'lower skilled' occupations as well. Here is more on that front from the paper:

Expanding technological capabilities and declining costs will make entirely new uses for robots possible. Robots will likely continue to take on an increasing set of manual tasks in manufacturing, packing, construction, maintenance, and agriculture. In addition, robots are already performing many simple service tasks such as vacuuming, mopping, lawn mowing, and gutter cleaning – the market for personal and household service robots is growing by about 20 percent annually (MGI, 2013). Meanwhile, commercial service robots are now able to perform more complex tasks in food preparation, health care, commercial cleaning, and elderly care (Robotics-VO, 2013). As robot costs decline and technological capabilities expand, robots can thus be expected to gradually substitute for labour in a wide range of low-wage service occupations, where most US job growth has occurred over the past decades (Autor and Dorn, 2013). This means that many low-wage manual jobs that have been previously protected from computerisation could diminish over time.

Look, it may not be breakthrough or even interesting news at this point that automation continues to advance, and both individual jobs and entire job categories are likely to be eventually transformed or even completely replaced by technology - be it robots or software or a combination of both.

But I still think the size of this transformation, and its impact are still underestimated. If the Oxford researchers are only half right, and instead of their conclusion that 47% of jobs in the USA are likely to be hihgly susceptible to automation in the next 20 years or so, and it works out to be closer to a quarter of all jobs that meet that same fate, it still has deep and profound implications for the economy, for education, and for society.

If you are interested at all in this topic, then I do suggest marking out some time to read the entire paper, it is one of the most fully developed takes on the subject that I have seen.

And I promise to lay off the 'robot' posts for a while!

Have a great week everyone!

HRevolution and HR Tech Conference Updates - and your chance to save

Please allow your correspondent a bit of (not totally) self-interested promotion today, as I wanted to take the opportunity to make sure that readers of the blog have the latest, and most up-to-date information about two upcoming events that I have a hand in planning, and that will be happening in a little over two weeks time.

First up, is HRevolution 2013, a one-day event for HR, recruiting, and truly every kind of business professional and will take place on Sunday, October 6^th at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

HRevolution was created a few years ago by a small group of dedicated HR pros that saw the need for a different kind of HR and Talent-themed conference – one that was less formal, more participatory, more about challenging conventional ways of thinking, was built around its attendees, and lastly was vastly more affordable than the typical professional event.

Over the years, HRevolution has held events in Chicago, Atlanta, Louisville, and this year for the second time in Las Vegas, but one element of HRevolution remains the same despite the years and changes in location – that the event is centered around providing a small but passionate group of the most forward-thinking HR and talent pros an event that is truly their own, and one that helps build and strengthen the community of HRevolutionaries. We will talk technology, employer brand, Generations in the workplace, keys for identifying top talent – and much, much more. And you will not want to miss the 2^nd annual ‘HR Improv’ presentation contest – trust me on that!

And I would be remiss if I did not thank the great folks at SumTotal Systems, the exclusive sponsors of HRevolution Las Vegas. Without their generous support, the event simply would not be possible.

This year we have another great lineup of sessions and speakers – you can see the full agenda here, and in true HRevolution fashion there will also be plenty of time and space to create and lead your own discussions as well. Tickets for the HRevolution Las Vegas are still available here, and if you register for the event not only are you making a great decision for your own professional and personal development, you will also receive a $600 promo code for the next event I’d like to mention in this post.

Of course I am talking about the HR Technology Conference and Expo that will be also held at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas from October 7-9, 2013. HR Tech is simply the biggest, best event of its kind that focuses on the business benefits organizations can realize from HR technology, while also showcasing over 300 technology and service providers in our world-famous expo hall. HR Tech has become one of the industry’s must-attend events for good reason – all the providers, all the top organizations, all the leading analysts, and scores of industry influencers will be in attendance.

While many of the widely available HR Tech Conference discounts are set to expire at midnight EDT on September 23^rd, your registration for HRevolution will provide you an exclusive HR Tech registration discount that is the best one still available, and will not expire. So if you’ve been waiting or debating or procrastinating about making the decision to attend HR Tech this year – don’t wait any longer – and sign up for HRevolution first, then use your HRevolution code to register for HR Tech. Attend two amazing events, save big money, and make the best investment you can for yourself and for your organization.

You can see the full HR Tech agenda here, and once you have the HRevolution discount code, and then proceed here to register for Tech.  If you do, please be sure to find me at the event and say hello.

Thanks as always for all the support of both these great events!

Please tell the robot where you see yourself in five years

Note: I warned you on Monday - it is unofficially 'robot week' here on the blog. Bail out now if this is not your kind of thing. Don't worry, I won't know if you did. Probably.

Researchers and engineers have long identified manufacturing, warehouse operations, and even more 'advanced', complex, and interactive processes like patient and elder care as potentially fertile ground for the further automation and robotization of the economy and society. While each new encroachment of these increasingly better, smarter, cheaper, and more reliable pieces of technology, many of us pause to take stock of just how near or far we see our own roles and jobs from this impending and inexorable onslaught.

And also increasingly, the answer to the question of 'Just how close is my job to being replaced by a robot?' is 'Closer than you think.'

For the folks who read this blog, mostly HR and Talent management professionals, 'basic' kinds of automation have mostly made our jobs better, easier, simpler, and allowed us to spend more time on complex and higher order activities. Instead of endlessly keying and re-keying data on dumb terminals, we have our employees process their own transactions on their iPads. Instead of calling up references for soon-to-be-hired candidates, we send the references a link to an online survey and have some software send us any red flags or exceptions. You get the idea. 

Automation in HR has no doubt helped make our operations much more efficient, reduced errors, and with the latest batch of exciting new technologies, given us insight into our organizations that would have only a few years ago been impossible to see.

But will automation in HR ever go even further and reach into one of the 'essential' HR and Talent functions - the actual assessment of a candidate in the traditional interview setting? Some researchers at LaTrobe University Business School in Australia are betting that the answer to that question is 'Yes'.

Check this excerpt from a piece on the Australian Financial Review site, 'Interviewed for a Job by Sophie the Robot':

With big eyes, a feminine voice and some interesting dance moves, Sophie is rather cute but don’t let that fool you.

Sophie could soon be conducting your toughest-ever job interview, monitoring not just what you say but tiny twitches in your eyebrows that give clues about how you really feel.

Sophie and her fellow “human-like” robots Charles, Matilda, Betty and Jack plus two as yet unnamed robots are the product of a research joint venture between La Trobe University Business School in Melbourne and global electronics giant NEC Corporation in Japan.

NEC provided the robots and La Trobe is adapting them for use in recruitment, health care and as “emotionally engaging learning partners” in Australia. Rajiv Khosla, who has been driving the project since its inception, says the robots are a “world first in the area of recruitment”.

Sophie was already involved in trial interviews of candidates for sales jobs, asking 76 questions about selling.

“She captures their [candidates] cognitive verbal responses and captures their emotional responses by monitoring changes in their facial expression,“ Khosla says.

Khosla insists robots will not replace humans conducting later stage interviews or employers making final hiring decisions.

Sure, the interviewer robots are just here to help the process, that is all Mr. or Ms. HR Director. There's no way a robot for gosh sakes would be better at assessing the validity, truthfulness, accuracy, and the like of a candidate's responses.

There's no way a robot would be able to compare, in seconds, and with astonishing precision the information provided in the interview with a candidate's resume, LinkedIn profile, social web exhaust, old resume from five years ago they forgot was still on Monster.com, and so on.

There's no way a robot would be able to sense subtle eye movements, increase in respiration, body temperature changes, as different questions get asked and answered.

There's no way a robot could, in fractions of a second, compare and contrast dozens of candidates' answers to the same questions and produce detailed analyses on quality and accuracy, and perhaps truth across these answers.

There's no way a robot could also compare the new candidate's responses and reactions with the last persons hired into similar roles, and how the successful and not so successful hires reacted in similar circumstances.

There's no way a robot could conduct dozens and dozens of interviews across a high volume hiring period for retail or food service without getting tired, crabby, maybe even a little forgetful.

Nah, no way a robot can do all that. We need people for all those things.

Happy Wednesday.

When the robots realize what they don't know

Warning in advance to the good folks that check out the blog here, I sense another 'robot' kick coming on.

So bail out now if indeed the tales from the robotics frontier are not really your thing.

Today's dispatch from the robot wars - Robots Learning Better Ways to Ask Clueless Humans for Help, is from the IEEE site. Scientists and robotics researchers at MIT, (it is always MIT it seems), have taken the 'clueless' robot that traditionally can do only what is specifically programmed to do, and enhanced it with the ability to interpret where and when it needs assistance to carry out an assigned task, and then to communicate that need for help to an equally clueless human counterpart.

In the research conducted at MIT, scientists have taught the robots to ask for help to complete the assembly of a piece of furniture. They can make requests for assistance like 'Please flip the white table top over' and 'Please hand the blue robot the black table leg'. check out the embedded video below to see how this process and technology work (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through)

If you watched the video all the way through (you deserve a medal for that), you might have caught the most interesting line of all - that this kind of robot technology would eventually allow humans to supervise larger and larger groups of robot workers.

Robots are great at completing the majority of most simple tasks, but eventually there are one or two steps in whatever you want a robot to do where it's much more likely to fail. Giving robots the ability to recognize these failure points and then intelligently ask for assistance could open up many more tasks to at least partial automation, and it's likely to have the most impact in variable, unstructured environments.

You know, like the kinds of environments and types of jobs that we keep thinking are going to be safe from the eventual robot uprising.

Have a great week!