AI's Transformation of Talent Acquisition with Serge Boudreau

Curious about how AI is reshaping the world of talent acquisition and what that means for aspiring recruiters?

Tune in as Serge Boudreau, Vice President of Global Agency Partnerships at C Squared Technology, shares his seasoned insights from two decades in the industry. With the rise of AI, discover how traditional roles are transforming and what it takes to thrive in this rapidly evolving field.

Serge delves into the shifting demand for recruiters, offering a unique perspective on the profession's future and recounting memorable moments from his podcasting venture with Recruitment Flex.

From streamlining resume screening to the rise of "lazy apply" tools, AI is both a boon and a challenge in talent acquisition. We explore the crucial balance between quantity and quality in recruitment, revealing how companies can navigate the overwhelming influx of applicants to find the perfect match.

As AI takes on more roles, maintaining a genuine human touch becomes essential. Listen and learn about the value of human interaction and creativity in the recruitment process, and join us in anticipating the innovations on the horizon that promise to redefine how organizations attract and nurture talent.

We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.

Chapters

• 0:03 Evolution of Talent Acquisition in AI
• 10:41 AI Impact on Talent Acquisition
• 19:16 Human Touch in Recruitment Processes

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom and visit HRGazettecom.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannum, and in this episode we're going to consider how talent acquisition has evolved in the age of AI and some of the biggest related opportunities and challenges ahead of us. My returning, amazing, awesome, wonderful guest today is Serge Boudreaux, vice President Global Agency Partnerships, over at C-Squared Technology, a company on a mission to enable the next evolution of recruitment advertising, moving it closer to the higher and making it fit for the age of AI. Serge has been in the talent acquisition space for gosh the last 20 years I guess since he was about 10, as both a practitioner leading large recruitment teams at some of Canada's largest brands, but has also worked on the vendor side with Workopolis, indeed and CareerBeacon. He has also co-hosted and produced the very popular recruitment podcast called the Recruitment Flex that went on for almost 400 episodes Well, congratulations. And four years Well and is now a co-host on the HR Morning Show. Serge, my friend, how are you? Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 3: 1:49

Bill, it's a pleasure to be back on the HR Chats, One of the first podcasts I ever did and, if I think about, we met right before the pandemic or right after the pandemic. I was trying to remember, but it's always a pleasure. It's so funny because you're in the UK now and I work for UK company, but I'm still in Canada.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Oh, we're talking before we hit record, and this is I do miss living in Canada. It is the best country in the world, but what are you going to do?

Speaker 3: 2:20

I agree. I agree the UK is pretty close, though right Like obviously you wouldn't be living there if it wasn't a great country.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Brexit. Anyway, this isn't a politics show, it's an HR show. Let's talk HR and TA. Serge, for those who didn't listen to our last conversation on the HR chat pod, why don't you start by taking a minute or two and reintroducing yourself to our audience?

Speaker 3: 2:49

Yeah, no, I appreciate it and, thinking about last time I was on, a lot has changed. But, as you mentioned earlier, I've been in the talent acquisition space for around 20 years and I've lived on both sides, right Like. I've seen the challenges that talent acquisition has from a practitioner, from just tiny details of how you actually get your candidates, how you leverage technology, and I've kind of like flipped from both, like going on the vendor side because of the knowledge that I've learned of being a practitioner and then being on the vendor side and understanding the pain that talent acquisition goes through and trying to help those practitioners, those leaders, to fix the challenges that we have seen. And I'll tell you 20 years in talent acquisition and I would argue that it's more challenging now than it's ever been, even if we go back 20 years, and we've seen all the advent of technology, different process like job advertising, how that's evolved. So I think there's still a lot of work for me to do because there's still a lot of things that need to be fixed on acquisition.

Speaker 4: 3:58

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazettecom. And now back to the show.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Is it a harder job to get into now, given that AI is augmenting and replacing so many more junior roles? Certainly. But someone who wants to become a TA professional or a recruiter or a sourcer, are those avenues into the role more difficult?

Speaker 3: 4:38

I think it is. And well, it fluctuates. It really fluctuates what the economy is looking like, because I say this a lot I think recruiters are the canary in the coal mine. When we see a market that there's going to be less hiring, recruiters are the first one to get laid off. And the flip side when the market starts picking up, we see a lot of recruiters, we see a huge demand for them and if we looked at the start of 2021, recruiters were the most in demand role. There was over 300,000 roles open across the world.

Speaker 3: 5:13

And now we look at it, now, where the market is definitely flipped, the economy is a lot more challenging. We're seeing a lot more layoffs. It's really hard to get a recruiter job and I'm seeing it firsthand in my network and fortunately, I have a lot of friends that work in recruitment and there's a lot of friends that are looking for work. So, anecdotally, but also if you look at the pure numbers, it's way more challenging. But the question is is that going to change? Is that going to change as the market picks up again? Are we going to see that AI has replaced some of these more junior roles?

Speaker 2: 5:51

I don't think at the moment, but I think that's coming to be frank recorded an episode for the HR chat show a few years ago now. It was one of the first pods that you'd been involved with and look at you, look what's happened since, become this super famous guy in the space, and that includes almost 400 episodes four years with the Recruitment Flex, with Shelley. Can you share a few guests that made a big impact on you and tell us why?

Speaker 3: 6:27

You know what. I'm so glad I did the podcast and I'm glad I did this podcast as well, because I just started the recruitment flex and it was one of the first times that I was a guest. And if you and I'm sure it's the same for you you learn a lot from your guests and it's kind of more educational base as far as interviewing someone. Like where else could you get the opportunity to meet CEOs or VP of HRs that have tons of experience just reaching out to them and being like, hey, I'd like to pick your brain. It doesn't always work. So the podcast was brilliant for that and if I think back right, there is so many guests that I've learned a lot from it, but some do stand out. One for me was James Ellis.

Speaker 3: 7:13

Employment brand was always something I was very curious about but really didn't understand in the same way of how important it was and how you would actually execute. James Ellis came on and probably five times on my show and really gave me some real insights of what it means to be a great recruitment marketer, to understand employment branding. So I would say James Ellis legend in that space. Then I think of my boss now, richard Collins. I had him on the show last February in the recruitment flex and I love the concept of qualified applicants and he really is. The reason I ended up working with him was because he came on the show and just made me so excited about it. Then there's the usual suspects in our industry, if you think about Hung Lee. Hung Lee is someone I follow and I really take everything that he puts out as almost the Bible as far as when it comes to our space. Tim Sackett was another.

Speaker 3: 8:16

So the big names obviously were key, but I also learned from I'm thinking of the last guest I had. I had the VP of Talent Acquisition for TD Bank, which is a huge bank in Canada and also in the US, and just her approach to talent acquisition was like, okay, that's how really big companies can execute on this, and she didn't have a lot of technology or anything. She was very focused on process and system. So I learned a lot from her. Her name was Irene Santos, so a mixture across the board, but we probably had 250 guests around that time, so there is so many that I can't even remember or name. But I know if you take all that knowledge combined, it's kind of brought a wealth of knowledge that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise did you ever get tin cup on the show?

Speaker 3: 9:10

william tin cup uh, you know what I never did? I did ask him. I know, william, and we never were able to coordinate it. It was going to be on our 500 show, which we never got to. No, I'm kidding, but he's brilliant, absolutely brilliant legend.

Speaker 2: 9:26

The guy's a legend, uh. I once saw him do one of the most entertaining presentations ever and it's just one slide with a few words on it. I wouldn't even call it a word cloud, actually, but I was riveted and I was chatting to him last week. He's back on the show, listeners, very soon. I'm recording with him imminently, so there's one for you to get excited about. I am a huge fanboy of William Tinkup, as regular listeners of the show will know.

Speaker 5: 9:56

This episode of the HR Chat Podcast is supported by Nebula Academy, a technology industry-focused workforce accelerator that offers learning programs to prepare individuals for successful careers. Our approach is centered around cognitive neuroscience research, combining the latest research and modern learning methods to create informative and psychologically safe learning experiences. Our programs enable individuals to achieve career readiness and immediate impact in their chosen field. Moreover, we help businesses create positive learning experiences, increase productivity, enhance team performance and build upskilling resources to meet the needs of today's modern workplace. Learn more at nebulaacademycom. Thanks, and now back to the HR Chat Show.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Serge, how has the talent acquisition space evolved in the age of AI and what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges in the years ahead?

Speaker 3: 10:52

Yeah, well, I think AI has been one of those fundamental shifts that is going to have an impact on talent acquisition. Pretty much every part of the industry and every industry is going to have an impact. And if I look at talent acquisition specifically, I think it's kind of put talent acquisition like it's flip talent acquisition on its head. Right. I think we've seen some fantastic tools that help streamline the whole flow, like we're seeing resume screening, sourcing and even interviewing being leveraged with AI. But I think we're also seeing some challenges and I think, if we look at it net net, I think AI at this moment has had a negative effect, and I'll tell you why.

Speaker 3: 11:37

I think what we've seen is a lot of talent acquisition build tools and some of it is not really useful right now. We're seeing things like candidate matching. Is any vendor out there really done a good job with candidate matching? Are out there really done a good job with candidate matching? 95% of the ones I've seen, I'm not convinced. I know there's a couple out there that seem to be doing a really good job, but on the flip side, we have seen tools that have created massive challenges in talent acquisition, and I think of one specifically. It's the lazy apply tool right, like we all know. The easy apply from Indeed, which is basically one click apply, we've seen across the board and we can debate if that's been great for talent acquisition or it's actually caused challenge. But the one, the lazy apply, which is basically an AI tool that you can leverage and apply to potentially thousands of job in a day, it's created a lot of noise in the space and it's created and this is coming from recruitment department saying we have too many unqualified applicants, and that's one reason. I think the other reason is what I call AI assisted apply. So every resume looks exactly the same. You know, you've seen where you're looking at the resume. It's like, damn, they're qualified, like they're perfect for this role. But you're digging in and be like so I'll give you an example. I saw a resume for a supply chain manager and the person hiring this role was showing me the resume she's got and she showed me a resume. She's like doesn't this person look qualified? I'm like my first glance, yes, absolutely. Then I start digging in deeper and they actually stock shelves at Walmart. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with that. I think every role is important, but also there's a big difference between being a supply chain manager for large organizations and stocking shelves at Walmart. So I think all of this has created so much noise for recruiters going through their ATS and being like who's qualified, who's not qualified? Who even knows that they applied for this role?

Speaker 3: 13:45

Was this just a lazy apply bot that just applied to as many roles as possible, which I still think is crazy, bill, because I think about it. I was doing this exercise in my local market in a city of 1.5 million people and I was like how many roles would I actually be qualified if I wanted to apply for a job? And it was five. So how do you apply to a thousand jobs? How do you apply to a hundred jobs? To a thousand jobs? How do you apply to a hundred jobs? You must not be qualified for a lot of those roles. But we're really early in AI in our space and I think that is going to evolve and I don't think we're going to see the impact of what's going to come out of it until at least another couple of years, in my opinion.

Speaker 2: 14:30

Listen if that candidate can convince the boss of a big company that she held that role, I think she's worth an interview. Honestly, I love you know. That shows creativity to me. Anyway, what do I know? Let's continue through. How does the quality versus quantity debate search play out in recruitment advertising and what steps can companies take to prioritize it?

Speaker 3: 14:59

Well, I think that is the conversation in talent acquisition right now, outside of AI. In general, I think all the changes and the flip in the economy has created a massive challenge for organizations that if you asked me three years ago, when I was leading talent acquisition for a software development firm, that I'd be getting too many software developers applying for my jobs, I'd tell you crazy, right, I had to pay double the market rate to even have anyone interested in my position. Now same folks are telling me how hard it is to get a job and how many jobs they're applying to. And then talent acquisition leaders are telling me I'm getting way too many applicants. And it kind of goes to that. Exactly where we have asked all our vendors right, like job boards, programmatics, it's all been about how much quantity can you give me, and that's been Indeed's whole business model. We can deliver a lot of candidates because we have a lot of eyeballs, but that's no longer the need right now. Like, we want to get to a point that we're focused on the quality aspect, like can they actually do the job? Do they have the certification to do the job? Do they have the experience? And instead of going through a thousand applicants, I'd rather go through 20. I'd rather go through 10. I'd rather go through five, right?

Speaker 3: 16:29

Just because we talked about it earlier, recruiters, like recruitment departments, have been like ransacked in some ways. There's way less people, there's way more noise and they don't have the time to go through all those applicants. So unfortunately, a lot of really good candidates are not getting the opportunity because of the overall noise in the space. So what really interested me about working at C Squared and working with Richard? He had the goal of how do we get to a place that we can really dive down, remove a lot of the crap that's out there? Right, like we're seeing a lot of international applicants for roles, that, and there's nothing wrong with international applicants. But if you're hiring in Canada, do you want to sponsor someone? Do you have the capacity? Probably not, right. So you're getting a lot of those applicants that are coming in. Then you're getting the lazy apply bots that are coming in as well, so you're getting way too many.

Speaker 3: 17:25

How can we verify and remove the unwanted noise? But then verify the license that you need? And that's what we've done at C-Squared is we figured that quality is very challenging overall. How do you determine quality? Because you could ask 10 different recruiters and they would tell you something different. We decided to go binary. So do you have this certification or you don't, and we can verify that. Do you have the right to work in Canada? Do you have the right to work in UK or you don't, and we can verify that. Do you have the right to work in Canada? Do you have the right to work in UK or you don't?

Speaker 3: 17:56

And we have built the tool that you can do that to hopefully get to a point where the recruiter opens up their ATS and looks in the candidate. They're all qualified with the right qualifications. Right. If, where you need to determine as a recruiter is like okay, where is the fit here? Is this a fit to the organization? They have the qualification, let's dig in deeper. If they can actually do the job in our environment where they potentially be successful somewhere else. Challenge for a long time. And it's going to start flipping to the quantity side when employers are starting to force their vendors to demand we'll pay for quality. We're not going to pay for quantity anymore, and that's a huge shift. We've been paying for quantity for 25 years, basically since job advertisement has come in play.

Speaker 2: 19:16

With so much focus, John, on tech, how do companies ensure that they don't lose the human touch in their recruitment processes?

Speaker 3: 19:25

Yeah, I think this is one that I think a lot about. And then I think about AI in general, and a lot of folks will say that AI has been built to enhance the efficiencies of your employees, and I think there is some truth to that, but I also think there is the reality. I think, if you look at the people that are building these tools in general in sitting somewhere in Silicon Valley, they're not thinking about how we can make our employees more efficient. I think they're thinking how can we build tools that actually replace employees? I think we have to face that fact, even though it's not a convenient truth, but I think that's where a lot of this technology is going to. And if I'm a CEO of a company I'm looking at, okay, is technology going to be able to replace a department that cost me a lot eventually, and I think it will. But here is the challenge we are humans, we're dealing in a world full of other humans and we like dealing with humans right, and I think we're seeing this across the board.

Speaker 3: 20:36

There's a little bit of pushback with all these automated message, these AI messages I don't know if you get a lot of sales or even recruitment inquiries and it definitely feels that it was written by AI and it's kind of becoming to a point that it's just noise spam. We don't even open these emails anymore. We're kind of just oblivious to it. It just doesn't matter. And I think those folks that are going back to the human element and customizing and being very personalized in their approach on the sales or recruitment side are going to be successful.

Speaker 3: 21:12

So I think there is going to be a lot of push overall to take technology to the next level to replace some human elements, but I think, like in general, I don't think that's going to happen.

Speaker 3: 21:24

I think we're going to hit a point that humans are going to be like no, I rather deal with John than deal with this AI robot that's going to interview me, or if I know that John is messaging me directly and he's put some thoughts into it, compared to an AI automated message or even marketing messages that we see across the board, I can tell on LinkedIn that 90% of the marketing messages are not real and, yeah, it's just not as exciting, it's not as genuine, it's not as authentic. So I think we're going to see a flip. We're going to see technology definitely become even bigger part of what we do across the world of work, but there is going to be pushback and the human's never going to go away. I think the ones that are, I guess, a step above when it comes to their interactions, how authentic they are in sales, recruitment or pretty much any function, are going to have a leg up in a world of technology.

Speaker 2: 22:29

So the good communicators will do okay. Yeah, All those middling recruiters or communicators, salespeople, whatever it might be, they might be in trouble. They might be in trouble Saj.

Speaker 3: 22:43

I think they will. I definitely think you should leverage AI right. I leverage AI to make my communication better, but I write it out first and I ask AI to help me correct my grammar and all the stuff I'm really bad at, and I think there's always going to be a place for that. But the ones that just completely rely on AI are going to find it challenging to really stand out. They can be replaced by anyone. In reality. There's nothing value added. There's no authentic value to that person. Have you heard?

Speaker 2: 23:15

these podcasts, by the way, which are entirely AI generated. So you've got a couple of folks having a chat. They're both just generated voices based on a generated script man. Somebody sent me some examples and he was like this is the best thing ever, the amount of content one could produce. My instant reaction the first time I heard one of these was no, because you buy into the personalities as well.

Speaker 3: 23:43

You know about, about wanting to people, buy from people, you know I agree, I would never listen to an ai to ai podcast the same I. I think we're going to get to a space and tell an acquisition, that talent acquisition, that where bots are interviewing bots, and I don't think anyone wants to get there right? I think there is a difference of leveraging AI, say, in podcasting and I've leveraged it like the tool that I use if I misspoke something and now I'm like I can actually go in and type in what I wanted to say and it's been trained on my voice to add that in. But that's like a 10 second clip right of my podcast or the rest is real and it makes sense. But like just to create a podcast with two AI voices talking to each other no way, I would never listen to that.

Speaker 2: 24:35

Okay, two more questions for you, sir, before we wrap up for today. The next one I'm going to challenge you because I like to mix it up, sometimes in 60 seconds or less. Mr Boudreaux, what innovations in talent acquisition are you most excited about, and why?

Speaker 3: 25:23

no-transcript to change to skill, and the ones that can upskill themselves as quickly as possible are going to have a huge advantage in the marketplace. And the companies that can determine the skills that are needed to be successful not only now, but in two years from now, and start training their workforce for it, are going to be the winners in talent acquisition and HR in general.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Very good, I think you had three seconds to spare. Well done. And just finally, how can we connect with you? What events will you be attending over the next 12 months? Uh, by the way, listeners, serge and I met for the first time in person right, serge, only only a few months ago, as we record this, in september in fabulous vegas at hr tech, and I'm like serge, how's it going? And it was boiling.

Speaker 3: 26:18

it was like 40 degrees, I didn't even know you were going and when I saw you I was I was really surprised and I I it was fantastic to meet you face to face. So that was really cool and that's one of the cool things of doing these hr events and these different conferences you're actually putting a face to people that you've probably dealt virtually for a long time and it kind of gives you the reason why face-to-face is never going to disappear, because I feel even a different connection to you. But next year I've got some big events that I'm going to do. Definitely TA week in San Diego. The first week of February is the first one I'll be attending, probably doing Transform in Vegas. Unleash Wreckfest is my favorite, bill. I've been once in Nashville, it's the one that I had the most fun, that fit my personality the most. So I definitely recommend everyone should do Wreckfest and it's going to be in Nashville again and the one that kind of gets some hate sometimes but I think it's still fantastic because everyone's there and it's where real business is being done, especially when it comes to partnerships is HR Tech, and I've been at HR Tech for I think I've done the last four and I'll probably do the fifth. So those, I think are the big events.

Speaker 3: 27:35

If you want to get a hold of me, I'm easy to find, so I have a podcast called Equality Conversation by C Squared. It's available on YouTube and all major podcasts. I am the co-host of the HR Morning Show. Every Tuesday morning we have some of the biggest influencers in this space hosting a show. It's a lot of fun. I'm the HR weatherman. I talk about stuff that's maybe controversial in the HR space but I love it. But if you want to get ahold of me, find me on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest and fastest way. I'm always on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2: 28:09

One of my favorite cities in the U? S is Nashville. Absolutely, I love Nashville, so for that, for that reason, I think I might go to breakfast. Usa, let's do Xg here. And uh and and. Hr tech. It was my first hr tech. You know. The hr chat show, so they tell me, is top three in the world, uh, in the category of hr tech awesome. However, I've been avoiding hr tech conference because I'm not a fan of vegas, frankly, but I had the best time in september. So I think, for sure, those two. So Nashville, my friend, we'll eat some barbecue, and Vegas, we'll just try and stay out the sun.

Speaker 3: 28:47

Yes, we'll eat some barbecue, listen to country music and then Vegas. You know what? I don't even leave, I don't even go outside.

Speaker 2: 28:58

Nothing against Vegas, I'm just there for the conference, because I've been way too many times oh, just before we wrap up, I didn't ask you how can folks uh learn more about c-squared technology, so you wanted to share the uh the website url with us yes, so c?

Speaker 3: 29:17

csquaredtechnologycom all together. There's also our app that's called CV Wallet and this is where for job seekers and can actually go in and put all their information. They can actually verify their information if they want to, that they can bring to any employer. So cvwalletcom for those Americans, resumewalletcom uh, for those americans, resume walletcom works as well, and but if you want to see everything that we're doing, c squared technology all in one word, um dot com is the place to find me.

Speaker 2: 29:52

Excellent and, as always, listeners, there will be links in the show notes and in the associated article on hr gazette. That's hrgazettecom Serge. That just leaves me to say for today, my friend, thank you very much for being my guest. Thank you, bill, and listeners, as always, until next time. Happy working.

Speaker 1: 30:16

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom.