It’s Time to Shake Things Up: A Call for Disruption in HR and Recruiting
The world of HR and recruiting is in desperate need of a shake-up. In our new podcast episode, we’re joined by Lori Golden, founder of The Rebel HR, to discuss the current state of the industry and the need for disruption.
Golden emphasizes the importance of bringing fresh perspectives to the table. “Nuance is everything when it comes to recruiting,” she says. We need a blend of innovation and experience to truly address the challenges of talent acquisition.
The Problem: Talent Tech That Misses the Mark
One of the biggest issues? Current talent technology often falls short. Tools like AI mass apply functions prioritize quantity over quality. “Lazy apply, shooting off to 10,000 jobs… it doesn’t align well for showing your value and that you care about this particular role,” Golden argues.
The Solution: Technology That Empowers, Not Replaces
The ideal scenario? Technology that empowers recruiters, not replaces them. “Using technology in the right ways to free the humans up to do the most important pieces,” Golden says. This means focusing on building relationships and creating a positive candidate experience.
Standing Out in the Crowd: Leveraging the Market as a Top Employer
But it’s not just about the tech. In today’s competitive job market, companies need to take a stand. Golden encourages listeners to leverage the current market to position themselves as top employers.
Packed with Insights: Takeaways for Job Seekers and HR Professionals
This episode is packed with valuable takeaways for both job seekers and HR professionals. We discuss the importance of remaining open and adaptable in the job search process, the need for a more human-centric approach to talent technology,and strategies for companies to build a strong employer brand.
Dive Deeper: A Look at the Episode Chapters
Tune in to the full episode for a deep dive into these topics, along with insightful chapter breakdowns like “Driving Change in the HR and Recruiting Industry” and “Shifting Mindsets in Talent Acquisition.” Don’t miss out on this thought-provoking discussion with Lori Golden!
Watch and listen here. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review!! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Transcript:
Mary (00:01.022)
Lori Golden, welcome to Recruiting Insider.
Lori Golden (00:04.302)
Hi Mary, how are you?
Mary (00:06.032)
Good, thank you. After a 25 year progressive career in agency recruiting and an in -house talent acquisition, she founded The Rebel HR, a disruptive HR and recruiting community. This is a community of rebels, renegades, change makers, paradigm shifters, and misfits who can’t see a systematic problem without attempting to solve it. Lori.
Have you always been a disruptor? And tell us a little bit about your background and why you created the Rebel HR.
Lori Golden (00:42.432)
Absolutely, thanks Mary. Thank you for having me too on the resume assassin. I’m excited to be here. Yes, I’ve always been a renegade and Like I give examples of this one when interviewing candidates for all the various startups over the 25 years
You know, I was the person who at like eight years old was moving furniture around my room every three minutes because I actually like change. While most people like are completely averse to any change, I seek it out a lot. So that’s, you know, kind of one example I give people. And yeah, I’ve spent the first 10 years on the agency side building out tech.
Mary (01:13.722)
me.
Lori Golden (01:26.83)
desk sales engineering for the dot -com boom and other startups along the way and then of course that that went south but I then at around 2010 moved back east to New York and went in -house via Contracting and then worked my way up progressively that way and I’ve been able to scale some really exciting very successful exited Startups and yeah, I love early. I love seed to like serious
Mary (01:55.966)
Yeah.
Lori Golden (01:56.736)
C or D. I say I’m like the Mary Poppins of early stage startups because then the suits come in with the gravitas they button things up and I bounce and that’s just I know where I fit and I know where I don’t. Yeah.
Mary (02:04.602)
Perfect.
Mary (02:13.022)
Could you give our listeners some examples of ways that you and your community are already driving this change?
Lori Golden (02:19.534)
Absolutely. So, you know, I have a lot of soapbox things that I, you know, problems I need to try to solve as the renegade I am. And one of the things that has always bothered me is the amount of tech that is built for recruiting and talent acquisition by people outside of recruiting and talent acquisition. And it doesn’t make sense to us. It doesn’t work right. It doesn’t align properly. It ignores the context and the
nuance. I mean recruiting is based entirely on nuance. Like that’s…
I know no one in it who’s been in it for a while who could argue that point. Nuance is everything when it comes to recruiting. It’s also why it’s so vastly misunderstood by all the people who have an opinion on it, from job seekers to tech disruptors to everyone. So my hankering right now is to bring together the collective of people like myself, who are natural innovators and disruptors, but also have a substantial amount of
of years of experience, knowledge, and wisdom to lend to how do we solve the right problems, what are the right problems, and let’s do that together. So I’m talking to like three to five new founders a week, diving into all the different things that are being built right now with AI.
you know, a couple things are good, but a lot of it is causing more problems than actually solving. So that’s why it’s more critical than ever before that we, the community of recruiting and talent acquisition, get in the conversation if you’re not. Otherwise, we’re going to be transformed kind of out of our own world, right? We have to be in the conversation right now.
Mary (04:12.766)
So you said that some of the tech out there is causing more problems than it’s solving. Could you give us some examples?
Lori Golden (04:17.134)
Ehh
Absolutely, there’s a really big one that’ll be clear and obvious, I think, to most, regardless of where you sit in the process or if you’ve ever recruited. And that is the AI Mass Apply tools. There are many of them right now, and essentially they make it so easy for people to apply without putting in any effort or even reading the job description at all or, you know, alignment.
None of it, right? It’s just a mass apply administrative function, bot applying. So what happens is that massively impacts the top of all the funnels of all the jobs that are open, and it adds so much volume that doesn’t make good sense. It’s not well -aligned talent volume at the top of these funnels, and it causes…
you know, kind of a blockage, if you will. So people who actually are very qualified for the role may never get seen. I mean, I know people who are applying and are not getting seen because if they were, I mean, their alignment is so solid on and not just 100 % minimum requirements, but like all the nice to haves, the scaling, fast growth SaaS companies and all the things, right? But they’re not being seen because nobody can see them.
manage that amount of volume with also lowest bandwidth that we’ve seen in a while in recruiting. We have so many talent professionals out of work right now that the bandwidth within companies is very low to process the highest volume they’ve seen in historically ever.
Mary (06:02.27)
Absolutely. Is there any way for employers to identify that candidates are using these types of AI tools to mass apply to positions?
Lori Golden (06:13.134)
That’s an awesome question. Some maybe, some no. I would hope that people would not want to be represented as coming through a channel called Lazy Apply. I don’t know how that…
shines the best light for any job seeker to do anything in a self -professed lazy fashion. Maybe I’m a little old school, but that doesn’t make sense to me, right? It’s an incredibly competitive market. You are competing with a lot of other people who are as qualified and more qualified than you are. Put your best foot forward. Lazy apply, shooting off to 10 ,000 jobs is…
it doesn’t align well for showing your value and that you care about this particular role. And so, yeah, in some cases, yes, it’s visible, in some cases, no, it’s not.
Mary (07:12.83)
I think I read a statistic somewhere that a couple of years ago there was one job opening for every one job seeker. Now it’s closer to one job opening for every two job seekers. So for any of our listeners who are thinking about using some of these AI tools or these new technology to spam and apply to tons of positions, what would you tell them?
Lori Golden (07:33.574)
Don’t. That makes no sense. I understand the concept of believing this is a numbers game. The more applications I put out, the more…
Callbacks, I will essentially get to the more invites to interviews. I don’t think that’s a great use of people’s time I think it’s leading to over rejection mental health issues a lot of frustration self -doubt Like all of that I think that I think very niche very targeted job search Makes more sense than ever now because it’s not just about your resume your resume is a two -dimensional poor representation of who you are as a unique
individual, right? You know, so no. I really think that people need to take the time to be clear about where they want to work, craft their unique value proposition for solving problems within that specific realm. Be like, if you’re so clear on what value you bring to the table, what’s unique and special about you as a candidate,
That’s constant. That shows up the same way to every conversation. It shows up the same way in any way that you represent yourself. That’s what people should focus on. Getting really confident around this is who I am and this is where I add the most value and here’s what I can do for you. Here’s how, I read something the other day, it was so profound to me. There’s,
two camps, two mindsets in the job seeker world. One is, I have a problem, it’s that I need a job, and the solution is for you to hire me. That is one pervasive mindset right now. The other one is, the company has a job because they have a problem they want to solve, and I need to present myself as the solution to that problem.
Lori Golden (09:32.334)
These are very different mindsets. It puts you and your needs and leveraging supply demands in the economy. It puts that all in a very different perspective. And I think it’s important that people really hear that.
Mary (09:48.35)
It’s more about just showing the employer how you can stand out. What problem can you step in and solve for them as opposed to firing off a thousand applications in one day? Maybe, like you said, focus on sending out five to 10 applications that are really highly strategic and show that unique value that you bring to the position. Show what problems you’ve solved in the past.
And how is that relevant to the company that you’re applying to? What are their pain points? How can you step in and solve those? That’s what’s really going to stand out. That’s not going to be those massive amount of applications that you’re shooting out. Yeah, I think that that’s a great point.
Lori Golden (10:19.246)
Exactly.
Lori Golden (10:23.566)
Yeah.
Lori Golden (10:29.294)
Yeah, augmented by five to 10 reach outs to the person who has the problem that you want to solve. Reiterating that because otherwise they may never know you exist just because of what we’re dealing with at the top of the funnel.
Mary (10:35.774)
Yes, yes.
Mary (10:44.318)
So you mentioned talent technology. So in your experience, how broken is the current landscape of talent tech and why are recruiter and talent acquisition voices so critical to fixing it?
Lori Golden (10:50.254)
Hehehehehe
Lori Golden (10:57.262)
That’s a really good question.
Saying it’s broken, I think, is also misleading. I think that’s a narrative that comes from the job seeker perspective. It also comes from the perspective of only seeing about 15 to 20 % of the entire scenario and story, right? So it’s an assumption based on limited information. I think there are things broken, but it’s like nine different moving parts, many different things. It’s like a convergence of challenging things.
starting with economy and the imbalance of supply and demand. You said, you know, it used to be one job to one person. Now it’s two, one job to two people and misaligned jobs to those people too. Let’s talk about…
that most of the new jobs are like hourly and service industry and, you know, government jobs. They don’t apply to the majority, at least, you know, from my perspective. So, you know, that also, right? But yeah, it’s…
Ow, now I lost my train of thought. Now you’re gonna have to edit. Where, I’m sorry, bring me back.
Mary (12:07.678)
That’s okay. And why are recruiter and talent acquisition voices critical to fixing it?
Lori Golden (12:11.598)
So important. So part of the issue, when I talk to these new founders, they’re really excited, they’re very passionate. I admire all of them for having the courage to try and do something new and disrupt something. But the first question I ask every one of them is, what problem do you think you’re trying to solve?
And it’s very telling, Mary, because they think they’re trying to solve this very specific problem that is actually like a symptom of five other problems that are at root cause that they don’t really understand or have visibility to. So that’s why I think we and what our responsibility is to the future of our space, that’s why our voices matter. Let’s get clear on what the actual problems are. Or have you considered that there’s these things going on, or that
some of the brokenness at the top of the funnel is actually intentional friction in order to even manage our applicant flow. Like we have to put, you know, intentional volu – intentional, fr – friction up there. There’s no way, there’s no bandwidth to process through the amount of applicants that we have. That’s, I think, why it’s so important that we really get to the crux of what are these real problems? What is solvable? What’s not?
A lot of them are economic problems, supply, demand, and leverage imbalances that like we’re not going to solve those. That’s like free market capitalism. I love you think that recruiters are powerful enough to like, you know, to tear down second wave capitalism, but that’s not going to happen. And we’re not going to do it like this, right? But what can we solve is having some good technology in place that does enable and empower both employers and job seekers to
Mary (13:44.03)
Yeah.
Lori Golden (14:01.344)
make good alignment, good decisions based on good alignment where everyone ends up happy, right? I think alignment and nuance are two…
key things that I want to focus on, you know, for the next decade. I think it’s what’s missing in most conversations I have. It’s what’s missing in a lot of the debates on LinkedIn. It’s just what’s missing. Like, that nuances everything and people need to understand it so that they can work with it, within it, and leverage it.
Mary (14:31.742)
Yeah. And you know, like you mentioned earlier, a lot of these developers that are building the tech, the technology, they don’t have any experience with the recruiting process itself. So could you give us some examples, some specific examples of tech in the recruiting space that’s either currently being built or that’s already out there and how would you change it and improve it?
Lori Golden (14:58.318)
Yeah, definitely the mass supply things, I would stop doing those. Any of the matching technologies, there’s a lot of AI matching technology. It lacks a lot of nuance.
It’s like it assumes that we look at the same five types of qualifications for every resume. Education, years of experience, titles, but that’s not true. I may not look at education at all for some roles, but if it’s a data scientist that requires a PhD, I’m gonna look at that first. So the ability to shift the nozzles and the levers.
is what is needed, it’s what needs to be added, and it’s what’s missing in most cases, right? And I get, I’m looking at MVPs, I’m looking at early stage stuff, they’re gonna pivot, they’re gonna add features, they’re gonna add things, a lot of this. But my job and my goal is to get them to consider the things that they don’t understand, like the nuance. Like, you know, let me control.
you know, part of the parameters of the matching technology. You can’t tell me that I can just upload a job description, the same job descriptions that we all have visibility to out here, that we all consistently, and we all, I say loosely, but en masse misunderstand.
Anyway, and your AI is not going to misunderstand it. It’s going to absolutely catch all the unspoken nuanced pieces, right? And they’re going to know how to match. They’re going to confidently say these are the top 20 % of all of the candidates. No, like that’s impossible without the input of a recruiter, a hiring manager. We need to be able to, like I said, it’s a shifting of those levers and nozzles.
Lori Golden (16:51.31)
Right?
Mary (16:54.43)
So imagine a world where talent tech is built with the recruiter in mind, with the talent acquisition professional in mind. In your opinion, what would that world look like and what impact would it have on attracting top talent?
Lori Golden (17:01.354)
All right.
Lori Golden (17:12.846)
I think that…
most of us, the ones who really care, who’ve been doing this for a while and who really care about candidate experience, about human connection. We understand fundamentally that AI is relevant, it’s important, and it’s useful, but only so much as so it’s useful to free us up from the mundane, repetitive tasks, the low value work so that we can spend more time connecting with the people and the candidates.
and building that candidate relationship and having a great experience, right? I think that’s what matters the most, right? Using technology in the right ways to free the humans up to do the most important pieces, which AI will never be able to do, not unless what we’re going for is a…
very quantitative versus qualitative kind of hiring landscape where it’s not personalized. Our unique value add is not the focus and the goal, but rather let’s all be the same and measure the same, you know, so that whatever, we’re cogs in a machine. I feel like there’s, you know, my goal is to not ever end up a cog in a machine, but rather to be part of the conversation around what machines should be built and how cogs can…
can be in the machine, making it work, but also feeling valued, respected, appreciated, growing, empowered and enabled in all the best ways.
Mary (18:50.238)
Absolutely.
Everybody’s heard of applicant tracking systems. What are some ways that we could incorporate the recruiter mindset into these applicant tracking systems while also making a better candidate experience for those that are applying to these positions?
Lori Golden (19:09.71)
Yeah, I mean first we need to understand what it is and right size our expectations around them from both sides. I mean, you know, an applicant tracking system is a document management system with a bit of CRM weaved in for communications and maintaining, you know, relationships. But, you know, it’s not designed to do the job of evaluating people.
ever, like that’s not what it was designed for. Even the AI ranking and matching and things and the overlays are not, you know, like they’re overlay, they’re add -ons. But yeah, I think that ATSs would look a little different. I think there are some really good ones out there that have been built by people who come from our space. I believe Greenhouse actually is an example of one of the most successful ATSs.
that did come out of, I believe one of the founders does have a TA recruiting background. Now that’s validation of everything I’ve said, right? Of everything we believe. We can also all point to really bad ATS systems that have, take a very corporate approach. They take a very impersonal kind of approach.
Some of them add a lot of noise. I don’t like a lot of bells and whistles in the ATS. I want simplicity. I like simple dashboards. Actually, some of the least expensive, easiest ATSs are my favorite, like a Breezy. I think Breezy is really cool. It’s super simple. I can just drag people through the process. And there are other good ones, but yeah, I mean, we have a long way to go. Part of the problem with ATSs too is that job seekers, it’s like a black box and job seekers have very,
very little transparency around them. They don’t really get any, I think that we could have a job seeker side dashboard or something along the lines of, you know, aiding in updates and communication and like understanding where you are in the process if you’re still in the process at all. That seems simple to do. And I actually know a lot of people who are working on something like that now. Again, what’s challenging is,
Lori Golden (21:26.798)
if you appease and placate the job seekers, oftentimes that doesn’t solve the employer problem. And who’s paying for the tool? The employer.
Mary (21:37.598)
Right. I think a lot of job seekers have a misconception that the ATS is this AI bot that’s just automatically rejecting them. And your experience is the hiring manager still reviewing every single resume that comes through that applicant tracking system? Or is there an automated section that’s put into place where there are candidates that are getting automatically rejected because they don’t meet those initial qualifications?
Lori Golden (22:06.574)
No, no, and yes. So, they’re never in the history of my career have I ever seen a hiring manager reviewing all applicants. Maybe in a super tight candidate market, think engineers 2016, 2017, say Seattle. In a scenario where there aren’t incoming applicants, but there may be dribs and drabs here and there, but like, no, we are…
the ATS bots. We are the first line screeners of the whole body of applicants that comes in. We go through all of them. Yes, there are tools that can overlay ATSs and some ATSs are embedding these tools within them where you can…
set up like ranking systems, you can probably auto reject the bottom 80 percent. If you set it up that way, it’s not none of these things happen automatically. Like there is no such tool in AI that exists that doesn’t require a human being to give it very clear guidance, parameters and criteria. And if they’re doing that and using those that AI kind of like top level screening function, it’s because there simply isn’t
It’s in response to the AI mass supply and the unbearable volume at the top of the funnel. It’s a necessity, if you will.
Mary (23:38.462)
It’s a double -edged sword, you know, because they’re all of these recruiters and hiring managers are getting laid off and they have this massive amount of applications and they have a reduced workforce. So I think the main takeaway for listeners in this is just make sure that you’re spending time to tailor your resume and your job applications to the specific position. Don’t just fire them off because…
Lori Golden (24:04.75)
Totally.
Mary (24:05.662)
You know, even though the ATS isn’t auto rejecting you, like a lot of people think, you may still get rejected if your resume is not showing the qualifications for that specific position. So make sure that you’re doing your due diligence.
Mary (26:24.478)
Very cool. The future of work isn’t just about technology, right? It’s also about a mindset shift. So how are you helping shift this mindset within talent acquisition?
Lori Golden (26:33.006)
Who is it?
Lori Golden (26:38.382)
Look, this is to us in talent acquisition, but everyone. It’s definitely like time to adapt. It’s shape shift time. It’s who moved my cheese, sniff and scurry, or finding the new cheese time. If that reference is relevant to anyone here, yay. If not, you should probably read it. It’s a very short book called Who Moved My Cheese, and it’s like a really simple concept, but I think change is.
Mary (26:56.446)
Hehehe.
Lori Golden (27:05.806)
historically very challenging for people. I think it elicits fear, discomfort, frustration. Plus there are a lot of like ancillary anxieties in the world today.
You know, I think community matters today now more than ever. I’ve never taken this much time and energy to connect with other people, peers in our space. I’ve done this level of networking with the engineers and the product managers and the salespeople that I needed to place, the talent communities that I played in. But now I’m really concerned for us because we, first of all,
Some of the most brilliant creative people I’ve ever met come from the recruiting and talent space. We attract neurodivergent excellence, just really special people, right? Humans that can solve a lot of important problems if given the opportunity to, right? I also think we could be building the future of talent technology if we had access to capital and investors and all of that, right? So that’s kind of the world.
that I’m pushing for. In this, the space of everything is changing, we get to change too. So those of us who are very natural, adapters, shape -shifters, transformers, we get to lead this charge. We get to have a voice now. We get to bring everyone together and help people who it’s not so easy for them to shift right now, find their relevance and stay in the conversation. So that’s why I’m committed to talking to as many people as I can, bringing our communities together.
There are like 10 zillion micro communities in recruiting and talent acquisition and they’re all awesome, but they’re all separate. It’s like lunch tables in high school, you know, and I want to bring the connectors together. I want to connect the connectors so we can have bigger conversations with much more impact.
Mary (29:03.262)
So you talk about driving change and you’re also a powerful advocate of transforming the entire candidate experience specifically with tech. How are you helping companies fix their talent acquisition process? What are they doing wrong and how are you helping them?
Lori Golden (29:21.998)
Sure. I don’t know that anyone’s doing anything wrong. I think everyone’s doing the best they can in a very challenging and uncertain economy. I think one part that we haven’t talked about yet today is the people left behind in companies who didn’t get laid off are walking on eggshells and highly risk averse and…
just trying to avoid the next round, I think, and stay employed. They’re seeing how difficult some really incredible people are having it out here who shouldn’t be having a difficult time, right? And so it makes people want to kind of like not rock the boat. So that’s challenging right now. But bring me back. Where were we?
Mary (30:06.75)
Yeah, so what are most companies doing wrong and how are you going to help fix it?
Lori Golden (30:09.422)
So I think that what’s wrong is that, I don’t know, a lot of it’s not fixable. I think there are a lot of unknowns. I know that the economic landscape is…
We’re not responding the way the Fed, I guess, wanted us to respond. So like the whole kind of, I don’t think company, they’re very tenuous. They don’t really know how to move forward and how to hire. Do they hire, do they not? So that’s one problem that we can’t fix. But what we can do, and what is wrong, is companies are putting the wrong friction at the top of the funnel and they’re alienating their target demographics, the people they actually want to attract.
I mean, like, they also are not leverage. So I argue, and I posted this the other day, but I argue it’s probably the best time in history, at least in my 25 plus year career, to really cement your employer brand and really cement yourself as a top employer right now because nobody’s spending on it and nobody’s focused on it. In fact, they’re like, stop applying. You know, it’s like too much, too much. But.
This market can be leveraged. They say that millionaires are made in recessions. It’s similar. Like the top companies are made in these like, you know, job market shit shows, excuse my French. But you know, like in this really strange kind of ecosystem and landscape, this is the opportunity for companies to easily stand out. You don’t even have to spend much to do it.
It’s all about your messaging and what you make important and how you optimize the opportunity to have a voice as an employer. If you notice right now, employers are quite quiet. I mean, they’re not.
Lori Golden (32:04.622)
Five years ago, employer brand was like all the rage. Everyone was the top employer and everybody was putting advertising and campaigning and messaging and you know about who they are as an employer when it was very competitive. I think that’s ridiculous. I think you do it now so that when things shift you’re already like you’re already talked about not only that but you could get a lot of press right now for being the kind of odd voice in the
this weird market.
Mary (32:36.19)
Yeah, and I think part of why they’re not shouting their brand from the rooftop is because it’s really an employer’s market right now. So like you said, they don’t really need to do that. You know, and a lot of them are also kind of taking advantage of employees. So you also mentioned that people are kind of scared. They don’t want to lose their job because it is such a tough market, you know, and then there are employers out there that are like, hey,
You have to come into the office. You have to work 80 hour work weeks. You know, they’re playing on people’s fears, making them believe like, you know, if you won’t do it, somebody else will. Yeah. So why do you think this is? And what would you say to those employers?
Lori Golden (33:03.63)
Great.
Lori Golden (33:07.342)
Right.
Someone will. It’s true.
Lori Golden (33:16.622)
So to me, that all feels so very fickle. I don’t understand, like, so if you’re touting employer brand and culture only when you have to.
I mean, don’t we see through that? Isn’t that disingenuous? Isn’t it absurd? Would we forget that two years from now, three years from now when we’re back in demand as candidates? I don’t, I won’t. You know, so yeah, I don’t, I get why they’re not, you know, they think it doesn’t make sense to shout from the rooftops, but I actually, again, I see things completely opposite. What an easy opportunity with so little noise to be that standout company right now. And then of course, the ones who want to take advantage,
of a down market, it’s being exposed. I mean, people are seeing through it. That is what some of the vitriol on LinkedIn is about. That is what some of the, although I don’t recommend that people who are job seeking and aren’t independently wealthy and don’t have plenty money for the next 10 years in the bank, I don’t recommend that you be part of that movement. Like,
you’re not the person who’s gonna move the needle right now and you’re gonna hurt yourself trying. Like, get the job and then jump aboard the bandwagon, you know, but you have to take care of yourself and your needs first and I think that people are…
I think they’re torn. I think they feel obligated to, you know, be part of the voice of what’s right and they want to call out employers that are leveraging and using this market to take advantage of people. But like, you have a choice. Use your choice. You don’t have to be an out loud influencer in this moment if what you really need is a job. Like, yeah. I read a post the other day about, you know, focusing on
Lori Golden (35:08.064)
on PTO in an interview, listen, yes, it’s well within your right to understand the PTO policies of the company, like at offer stage. Like if you’re spending time talking about making sure that the company knows that you are prioritizing PTO benefits and what’s in it for you, you’re going to get rejected for the person who is using that same time to express what they can bring to the table. Like,
The power is in the employer’s hands. Now is not the time to try to leverage power you don’t have. It just isn’t.
Mary (35:46.079)
Yep, I love it. So why should our listeners care about this conversation today and what are the top three things that you want them to take away?
Lori Golden (35:50.766)
Yeah.
Lori Golden (35:54.734)
It depends who’s listening, but one thing, all job seekers, including the ones in recruiting and talent acquisition, because look, we make up a large portion of them unemployed right now, but be open, be open. Part of standing out in this competitive market is openness. Don’t make assumptions about what a company culture is based on something you see in the application process. That’s a fallacy. There’s…
You may be right, you may not be. Please don’t lose out on a job opportunity trying to take that gamble. Be open. Be open, folks. Be open. Be open to the assessments if they need assessments. Or be open to showing them how you can add value. It’s important right now. Some of the best companies with the best environments and cultures and growth and all the things you want have the highest talent bar.
bars. That means there’s a lot of friction at the top of that funnel. Remember that. So yeah, be open, use earn better. You know, try not to make assumptions right now. And you know, on top of all of that, most of the challenges that we’re facing are economically driven. They’re free market, capitalism, supply, demand, labor, supply.
Driven. It’s not you. It’s not me. It’s not the companies. It just is. So, yeah.
Mary (37:30.238)
Most employers are doing their best. So like Laurie said, if you’re applying to jobs right now, be open to the process. Don’t judge them. It’s a tough time for employers too with having to lay people off and they’re working at a shortage and they’re doing everything that they possibly can in most cases to make the hiring process as seamless as possible.
Lori Golden (37:32.494)
Yeah, I think so. Most are.
Lori Golden (37:54.766)
Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Yes.
Mary (37:58.494)
So Lori, what are you up to now and where can we find you on social media?
Lori Golden (38:02.286)
Totally, well I’m all over LinkedIn, both my personal page and the Rebel HR, the Rebel HR, come join us. If you wanna be part of the collective, you’ve been in TA and recruiting and you care a lot about tech and the future and you’re a part in it, let’s connect. Those are the conversations I’m having right now. If you’re building a talent tech, please reach out. I’ve got advisory for you. I’ve got, tell it like it is straight.
no chase or feedback that will absolutely save you.
It’s probably multiple iterations of your solution. So let’s chat and yeah, I’m here. I’m out here. I’m also available for companies that are looking to streamline, improve the top of their funnel, put better process in place right now, better friction at the top of the funnel that is not going to alienate your target talent, as well as leveraging this awesome opportunity to do some low lift employer brands,
that’s gonna, I think, secure you as a top employer for the next decade.
Mary (39:12.702)
Amazing. Thanks for coming on today, Lori.
Lori Golden (39:15.214)
Thank you so much for having me, Mary. This was fun. I could talk about this stuff for hours on end. Thank you.