What AI Can't Replace in Recruitment with Ian Knowlson

The recruitment landscape is transforming at breakneck speed, with business models that once lasted decades now becoming obsolete in just a few years. How can talent leaders navigate this change while maintaining the essential human elements that technology can't replace?

Recruitment veteran and Disrupt Manchester speaker Ian Knowlson draws on his 40+ years of experience to illuminate the path forward in this compelling conversation. Having established and scaled recruitment operations across Europe and led public sector initiatives that grew from 2% to 52% of Hays IT's turnover in just four years, Ian brings practical wisdom to the AI revolution.

"AI will not replace people," Ian asserts with conviction. "What will happen is AI with people - augmented AI - will replace those recruiters who aren't using AI." This distinction is crucial. While automation streamlines processes, the uniquely human capabilities of empathy, emotional intelligence, and contextual reasoning remain irreplaceable. When a candidate inexplicably declines an apparently perfect offer or a client has complex talent challenges requiring creative solutions, artificial intelligence alone cannot navigate these nuanced waters.

The conversation with host, Bill Banham explores VUCA leadership principles (Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Agility) that leaders need to master, plus the critical fifth element for our times: Emotional Intelligence. As jobs undergo "fractionalization"—being deconstructed and redesigned with AI integration—recruiters must shift from being aggressive hunters to relationship builders who can identify candidates with transferable skills for emerging roles.

For Gen Z candidates seeking authentic connections rather than hard sells, this evolution in recruitment approaches couldn't be more timely. Whether you're a talent acquisition leader, recruitment professional, or business executive navigating workforce transformation, this episode provides both strategic vision and practical insights for thriving in an AI-augmented future.

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn to continue the conversation about recruitment's exciting evolution in the age of AI.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to HR Chat Show
• 3:10 Ian Nelson's Background in Recruitment
• 5:44 Seismic Changes in Business Models
• 10:01 Leadership in a VUCA World
• 13:38 Building Culture in Changing Businesses
• 18:41 Human Skills in an AI-Driven Workplace
• 24:34 Disrupt HR Manchester Event

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 this time, bill Bannum, and joining me on the show today is none other than the wonderful, fabulous, fantastic. Ian Nelson, a recruitment industry nerd, growth coach and business mentor who utilizes his 40 plus years he must have started when he was about 10, 40 plus years experience establishing and growing businesses in the recruitment sector to assist his clients create, develop and deliver high growth strategies and visions for their companies. Ian, my friend, how are you? Welcome to the show?

Speaker 3: 1:02

I'm good, bill. Thank you very much for having me back on. I you know, and it's always great to talk to you. We should. I'm looking forward to the next half an hour or so. I've got no idea where we're gonna go. Um, it's a little bit like getting on a boat and just seeing where we end up. So let's, let's you know, let's crack on let's have a bit of fun.

Speaker 2: 1:21

Uh, I wish we'd hit record earlier, because all the things that we were going through before we hit record was also terribly interesting. Let's try and touch upon some of that. Ian, for those listeners who are not familiar with you beyond my introduction just a moment ago what can you add? Give us a bit of a lowdown on yourself, your career, background and, of course, what gets you up in the morning.

Speaker 3: 1:40

I spent 40 years in the recruitment space in the morning. I spent 40 years in the recruitment space. I worked, finally, for the final 10, 15 years of my life for the Hayes group of businesses. I was involved in running some Hayes operations in Europe. I worked in Germany, actually physically went into Germany and worked there for 12, 18 months and then came back to the UK during the Tony Blair era and ran a division of Hayes IT that was basically in the public sector and we took that division from 2% of turnover to 52% of Hayes IT's turnover inside four years.

Speaker 3: 2:17

Did a lot of work with talent acquisition with some government departments, then went into managed service, sold some managed service to various government departments NHS, connected for Health, DWP, who else? Foreign and Commonwealth Office. So, yeah, all good stuff, but I left that world 15 years ago to do what I do now. And yeah, you touched on passion. That's what I'm passionate about.

Speaker 3: 2:42

I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about people. I'm passionate about helping people to transform their lives and actually, yeah, it's I don't like using the word in a way, but you are actually, when you're a coach, you're taking people on a journey, you're their guide and support and you know, that's why I get up in the morning and I'm, you know, in my early sixties now, but I still love what I do and, as you can tell from what we were talking earlier, I'm very passionate about where we, as as recruiters and as talent acquisition teams, are going to go over the next 10, 15 years which is a great lead into my next question, which is basically what's going to happen in that world in the next five to ten years.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Uh, you've worked in the ta recruitment industry for for 14 years and you talk about the seismic changes that ai is bringing to your recruitment. We're all seeing it at the moment. Uh, what do you see as the biggest opportunity in for recruitment leaders, specifically leaders? Uh, in 2025 and beyond?

Speaker 3: 3:40

that's a great question, um, and it kind of brings me to where I am at the moment in my career, and that is I'm heavily involved with the industry body, apsco, which is in the professional sector, and what I've realized over the last couple of years is AI is touching every part of our recruitment sector, of whether you're in-house, whether you're working in agencies, and I think it's a time for leaders to well, as I call it, reimagine their recruitment business. The speed of change from ChatGPT 3.0 to 4.0 to now 4.5 and the next iterations in that world are quite powerful, they're quite seismic and there's a whole raft of other plethora, really, of other tools that are moving forward at pace, you know, and that movement from 3.0 to 4.5, which is two iterations, is like 18 months, so in five years. Five years as a growth, as a change, is phenomenal. There's a lady I've forgotten her name and I should should have brought her up, um, cause I'm going to just remember this she's called Dr Nadia, she's called the reinvention queen. You probably should get her on your podcast. She's amazing, she and her team from I don't think it's Stanford, but it's one of the American universities. She's done her research into change and business models in the 20th century and then to the 21st. And what she discovered, or what the team discovered, is in the 20th century the average business model lasted 70 years. So the Ford motor car and cabri's and 3M and all these people, whatever this process and systems they were using to build and sell their products, probably didn't change much for 70 years Since we've come into the 20th century. In the first decade, two decades of the 20th century, the average business model lasted 10 years. Now that's quite a change from 70 to 10 years. But what's even more frightening is if you look at the speed of change from where we are now, where we have been in the last 10, 15 years, to where we are now, the speed of change is every three years. So three years is probably equivalent to 70 years in the 20th century and 10 years at the beginning of the 21st. That's kind of where we're at.

Speaker 3: 6:00

So what's the challenge of where we're at? So what's the challenge? The challenge is for leaders to get ahead of this, to understand, and often when I run leadership programs I talk about VUCA. You understand the term VUCA I can see you're nodding and there's VUCA leadership which goes alongside that. So for the listeners who are not familiar. Vuca stands for velocity of change, the uncertainty of the world we live in. Talk about complexity of change and ambiguity. Those are the four challenges that leaders have, and VUCA leadership is counteracting velocity with a vision. So all good leaders now need to have a vision.

Speaker 3: 6:44

No-transcript and I think most of us who were in leadership positions during COVID will probably remember that without a vision, you know, we went through a storm with COVID and as you came out the other side of it, you needed that vision so you could recalibrate and reset your course into the future. You counteract uncertainty with understanding, so leaders need to be able to bring an understanding and, for me, where we get understanding and I'll link this into AI in a minute is from data. You need data-driven decision-making more now than you ever did, so you need to have good data. And then you get on to with complexity. The way to counteract that is give clarity. So clarity is how do you take that understanding, link it into the leadership, give direction. And the final one is agility. So those are the four ways that you counteract that world of change that we're in, and I would actually add a fifth one, which is probably the most important because of AI, and that is emotional intelligence build. So pick up whichever of those threads you like, and we'll happily go somewhere else.

Speaker 2: 7:51

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. I mean one thing that I'd like to pick up on. There is this idea of a business lasting only a few years now, compared to 70 years back in the day. How does a potential employer sell that to a candidate? What does that conversation look like if the promise is you can come along on the ride with us, but that ride might only last a few years? This is this is not a job for life. What does that, what does that conversation look like? Does that mean equity.

Speaker 3: 8:38

Tell me more what um dr nadia says, and the reason I can't remember her surname is she's from uzbekistan and it's not an easy word to put in a. It's got zeds and x's in it, but if anybody wants to know what it is, happily message me on LinkedIn. I will send you a link. She's the reinvention queen, they call it. She's written a book about it and she says the solution, therefore, is leaders need to be constant, so you can't just wait three years for your system and your business model to become redundant. You have to be continually reinventing. So, to answer your question, no, you can't bring somebody in today and say this is a great business and we'll be here in 50 years time. That doesn't exist. What you can do, however, is you can invite people to join your business and your culture and go on that journey, and I remember talking a few years ago at a conference about the need for businesses to have an operating culture. They talk about an operating model, but you need an operating culture. Now. It's the culture that you need. So, whether it's innovation, it's about D&I in there, we're a whole raft of other things in that culture. You need to be creative, you need to be respectful, we need to be collaborative, and nobody has a monopoly on bright ideas. They come from everywhere. So it's building that culture and putting all those things together in such a way that it builds. You know, something that is unique, and I think you know if we were to take it back a few years.

Speaker 3: 10:05

Jim Collins wrote books, didn't he? Good to great and built to last, and they've got a little bit of that in there. So it's the same thing, but just with a slightly different emphasis. I think. What I'm saying is I think you can't invite people to join your business model, but you can invite people to join your team, to go on that journey with your team, and you've got a vision of where your business wants to be and what you want to be about. I mean, simon Sinek talks about start with a Y, doesn't he In his golden circle? And I think he's right. You know you've got to have a Y. We're back to vision again.

Speaker 4: 10:42

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Speaker 2: 11:12

Learn more at disrupthrco Shameless plug. Please do check out the episodes I've recorded with Simon Sinek's right-hand man, Stephen Shedletsky. He still holds the record, I think, for the most downloaded episodes, Stephen, if you're listening. Hello, let's catch up sometime soon. Okay, let's switch that question if you don't mind.

Speaker 2: 11:35

Why should a candidate take a job anymore? What I mean by that is here's some context. Before you and I hit record today you shared a story of a conversation you had with a young person who, over the last 12 to 18 months, has actually built a whole new career for himself, a new job for himself, by becoming some something of an ai expert. The rate of change at the moment, uh, caused by ai, the, the different versions of chat, gpt you mentioned a little while ago. Um, is it actually a better idea for someone who's a modest, moderately intelligent savvy to not go down the traditional career route anymore and jump on all of this stuff and start their own thing?

Speaker 3: 12:16

If it's your preference and that's what floats your boat, then the answer is yeah, do it. Toby, who I was referring to. Toby was in the same school year as my youngest son and there are certainly plenty of young men who've gone off and done, you know, or are going to do, what Toby's done. But equally, there are plenty of young men and women who don't want to do that. It's not their thing. They want to be a part of something, they want to be a part of a team and because they don't you know personal preferences we're talking Myers-Briggs or insights or whatever that's not their. They're not solos, they're not leaders. They want to be part of a group and that's what floats their boat.

Speaker 3: 12:58

And I do think, for mental wellbeing reasons. You know community and being part of the community is fundamentally important, bill. So yeah, and I'm, you know, more than happy to do that with people that do, but equally, I totally respect why some people wouldn't. I don't know more than happy to do that with people that do, but equally, I totally respect why some people wouldn't.

Speaker 3: 13:11

I don't know if that's the question I think it probably has.

Speaker 2: 13:14

But you know what it's your wordsmith, sir, so I'll take it. I'll take it, okay. So, before we hit record again, before we hit record today, uh, we're talking about the, the, the recent uh comments from from Bill Gates, who was saying that people would only need to work a couple of days a week in the very near future. You have a more optimistic outlook on AI's impact on the future of work than I do, and specifically the future of people within the workplace that I do. You've said that AI won't replace the human touch and recruitment. Can you unpack which human skills you believe will become even more valuable in an AI driven market?

Speaker 3: 14:00

Absolutely To me. This is. This is where I mean. I mean dancing around this for about three or four years now, when I really got under the skin with working with Toby, and what I realize is and I'm happy to be held accountable for this AI will not replace people per se straight away, and I'll come on and explain why in a minute.

Speaker 3: 14:23

What they AI will do is AI with people will augmented, or AI, as we call it will replace those recruiters out there, those talent acquisition people that aren't using AI. And what AI? There's certain things that AI can't do, so let me give you 10 strengths that humans have. So the first one is empathy. Now, those of us who are in the talent acquisition world know how important empathy is when it comes to getting candidates to join a business or getting clients to work with you. Empathy comes from that human connection and whilst we are moving humans from one environment to another, humans will want that human contact in some form. They may not want them all the way through the process, but they will want them in certain forms, particularly when decision making comes along. Emotional intelligence, which is a second thing, which is again you could argue. Well, in fact, dan Goldman would argue, empathy is part of it. You know emotional intelligence, so I'm just kind of stretching the truth a bit. But, ei, you know why did the candidate decline the offer? Why was the client not particularly, you know, taken with a particular candidate? It's an emotional connection. Sometimes, you know, it's understanding and deep deconstructing that emotional, complex issue and contextual reasoning is another skill that we as humans do. Contextual reasoning and I explain that is understanding how broader factors like the timing of an offer or the marketplace or the business stage where it's at what were you talking about a minute ago how that affects decisions. Why is one hire more urgent than another? Why is the candidate hesitating and not taking the offer? You know, sometimes you look at an offer and you think salaries more than they were earning, locations closer, the business has got a great. You know EVP sorry, not EVQ and you you were saying, well, why is the candidate not taking the offer? And you have to deconstruct and you have to go deeper and you find out well, there's, there's some personal stuff there. There's some personal stuff that picks up on experiences I've had in the past and it's far more complex. So those are another. Those are things that for me you can't replace. So what you can replace is that process.

Speaker 3: 16:44

Bit toby and I were talking about this only today and what he was saying is he uses a note taker and the note taker he's slightly dyslexic he won't mind me sharing this with you slightly dyslexic. So when he's talking to a candidate on the phone without the note taker, he's having to use a fair amount of his mental capacity to write the notes down and put them into a crm. With a note taker, he's having to use a fair amount of his mental capacity to write the notes down and put them into a CRM. With a note taker, he just focuses on the candidate. You know, using Stephen Covey's levels of listening, he's at a much higher level of listening. He can intuit what the candidate is thinking back to what we just talked about. He can build empathy, can build trust and at the end of the conversation, you know you can press a button and all of that summary of that conversation goes straight into his crm. That's how ai is supporting the process.

Speaker 3: 17:32

So, and there's a whole raft of other things negotiation, persuasion, creativity these are things you know.

Speaker 3: 17:39

When a candidate, when a client, has a particular challenge or a talent problem, you know your ta guys will. Having worked in the in the um outsource world, you know I remember doing some fairly complex recruitment for the n for the dwp and you know we couldn't fill 20 jobs in the northeast of england and um via john hutley was a minister at the time we were asked to come up with a solution that would fill those 20 jobs and the solution that we came up with was we'll move them from the northeast to the northwest because there's a greater pool of candidates with those skills. And it's like, well, how do you do that and how do you do it in such? So it's that creativity which, you know, would a computer come up with? I guess it probably would, but somebody would have to ask it to point it in the right direction. So that's why I'm more positive, because I see the laborious, boring bits of recruitment shrinking and that empowered business owners and empowered recruiters can get to that talent can help businesses move it forward.

Speaker 2: 18:41

My concern is with junior folks, regardless of their role, whether it's recruitment, um law, look at law, look, all the solicitors that weren't junior solicitors won't have a job very, very soon. Well, that's a good thing or a bad thing, um, and that's. That's because all of those more mundane things with more junior level, paralegal.

Speaker 2: 19:01

I think you're talking about paralegals, yeah, and qualified solicitors as well, coming out of university, who you know in the first five years trying to get experience. There's a whole bunch of things in terms of creating contracts that could be done by ai today you know as an example to a degree, but those are the folks that I worry about. Yeah, you spoke you. You focused mainly on leaders there. The future is bright bright, maybe for leaders. It's the more junior folk that I do worry about.

Speaker 3: 19:27

Well, it's interesting you say that and I don't necessarily disagree, bill, but there are jobs being created all the time, you know. So what I just talked about a minute ago is a whole set of skills which are part of the process. But let me give your audience and you something to think about. If we're reshaping and redesigning jobs and a lot of consultants in business are sharing this with me we, as recruiters, are going to be at the forefront of the AI generation. What they talk about is the fractionalization of work. So by that what I mean is let's suppose you have two candidates or two employees who leave a business. The employer is probably not going to replace them with like for like. They'll deconstruct their jobs and look at all the tasks. And yeah, you're quite correct, some of those tasks can be performed by AI, some of them can be performed by the human, but with AI and augmenting it, they can be more efficient. And so you come up with a new role, a new job, and as this is happening at pace and people are being displaced, not in ones and twos, but in 20s and 30s, then you need consultants to you. You have, you have employment architects, you know okay, in hr we call that organizational design. But it's one thing to design a role, but if you don't know where those skills exist, you know and I worked in IT recruitment for quite a long time and the number of times a new tech technology would come on, the on, the on, the world would actually come into place and businesses would want to recruit them and say, well, yeah, there's. I can't remember NT Windows came in in the late 90s and I remember you know, everybody wanted, you know, windows NT engineers and they couldn't get them. So what did they do? Well, they had to get novel engineers or old Windows engineers and retrain them and reskill them.

Speaker 3: 21:26

Now, if that happens at pace across all of our sector, it's where do we find these people with, I don't know, two thirds of the skills, or maybe a third of the skills, but has the behavioral competencies?

Speaker 3: 21:38

For me, recruitment is going to change because business owners need to think about well, actually, if AI is going to change, do I need these hungry, aggressive hunters that go out there and are in the way that they do recruitment, or do we need people that are good at building relationships?

Speaker 3: 21:58

So I've talked about emotional intelligence and I don't wish to disrespect a high percentage of the recruitment industry, but certainly from the side of the fence that I've worked on in recruitment, maybe some of the most successful people are much more aggressive, high-powered salespeople than they are relationship builders. Well now, if we're moving to a world in which you might need some of those people to acquire the vacancies and the relationship with the client in the first place but no, that's not the way it's going to work, your talent acquisition people will know that it's about building rapport with candidates and hiring managers and that hiring community. That's a different skill and whilst that exists in the large corporates and the RPO and the MSP businesses, I think that is going to travel down to the small SMEs. So, redesign, restructuring, rebuilding there are lots of new jobs that are being created. You know, we all know what a vlogger is now, but it didn't exist 10 years ago.

Speaker 2: 23:00

Yeah, and I think there's also just to add to that, the generational differences. I think you called me an old codger before we hit record. Today I'm a millennial, me an old codger before we hit record today. Um, I'm a millennial, uh, born in 83, and xenial is another term somewhere in between, uh, the, the previous generation and the millennials, um, but my understanding of these, uh, these gen z's, is they are looking for more authentic relationships. They don't want to be sold to you know. So if you've got that aggressive uh recruitment, they're not going to resonate with those folks, right? So there's another reason to to adapt and to change anyway. I could go on about this with you for ages, but we are running out of time. So two more questions for you for today.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Um, uh, last time you and I caught up a couple weeks ago, uh, we were chatting about all sorts of things. I mentioned that we are doing an event in manchester, a disrupt event in Manchester, and you have kindly offered to be a speaker there. You and I are also talking about doing some exciting things in the forms of meetups in Manchester and Liverpool. Watch this space on that list. But just briefly, in 60 seconds or less, I'm going to challenge you in 60 seconds or less. What can attendees of Disrupt Manchester on September 24th give us? What can they expect from from Ian's talk at that event?

Speaker 3: 24:17

I think we'll be. Well, I don't think I'm pretty certain. We'll be talking about AI in some form or another. We'll be talking about the talent world. We'll be talking about real, live, practical examples of what's going on, and it'll be. I would like to think it'll be an alternate audience participation uh, talk if they want to come and sit and just listen with a beer and fall asleep. That's not the way it's going to work. I'd like everyone to be involved and we can talk and discuss these highly interesting topics. That's what I would like to be able to do.

Speaker 2: 24:48

oh, you had like 30 seconds to spare here. Very good, uh, just finally for today. How can our listeners connect with and learn more about you?

Speaker 3: 24:56

please reach out with me on linkedin. But do one thing just put a notice to why you're contacting me. Even if it's a friendship request, I don't mind. Just tell me why you're connecting with me. And you heard me on on your podcast because, like everybody else, I get hundreds of invitations a day, but it's normally somebody selling me some connection system or software. So if you say it's from this, I'll happily connect, happily engage, happily talk. Or on my LinkedIn profile I think my email address and phone number's there as well you can message me that way. But it's fabulous to talk to you again, bill Love being on the show. As always, we run out of time. We definitely need that walk in the Peak District Two or three hours up Ludd's Church or over the Roaches or down Dovetail. We'll have a great time.

Speaker 2: 25:45

That sounds like a cracking idea to me, but for now, sir, thank you very much for being on the HR Chat Show Pleasure and listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1: 25:59

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.