The Evolving World of Recruitment Marketing and Employer Branding w/ John Graham Jr. – The Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Ep. 7

[Music] who are you and why are you here feel like you’ve asked everybody that question yeah we’ve been given some standardized questions uh I’m John Graham vice president of employer brand strategy uh humanity and culture at Shaker um and I help our clients think about their employer brand strategy from end to end not just the pieces and the parts how does EVP connect to EB connect to RM uh and everything in between and how do we bring it to life in a way that makes sense uh for your organization and your culture and you presented earlier today talk about that presentation yeah we were talking about the predictions for 2025 as far as recruitment marketing and employer branding uh so getting thought leaders from you know Visa an AutoZone to share their perspectives things that they’re working on now um what do they see as the challenges of course AI was a conversation as it is in every conversation uh but also the Dei landscape and how that’s shifted significantly and how do you brand in the context of a company that might be rolling commitments back um how do you get leadership uh the disconnect between leadership experience and the Frontline experience and how do you bridge that Gap with employer branding uh and I think we also spoke about um not looking at bringing people in for Lifetime careers but more so being a Launchpad for the career that they need now yeah and if they go somewhere else awesome but take this Goodwill of the brand with you and the values and the opportunities that you got to grow Yeah you mentioned AI being a Hot Topic and yes it indeed has yes are we as branding uh organizations putting too much trust faith in technology and not enough about the human part of our business or there companies bringing both together for for two great tastes that taste great together what’s your take on that yeah oh I think you nailed it I think we we have to be cognizant of the balance between humanity and Technology uh you can’t depend too much on technology because you’re still dealing with real people um uh and you can’t give all of your agency away to uh you know an AI gen a chat bot any of that um because it might not be right um so I think what we what we’re Rec reconciling now is which bias are we comfortable with right obviously there’s bias in AI because people made it there’s bias and people so we can’t trade off one for the other the question is which one are we going to be more comfortable with and accept what comes with that so yeah I think we need to inject a bit more Humanity in and leverage AI as a tool not as a surrogate one of the more fascinating uh things that I’ve sort of learned in the last few months particularly here at this show is we went from a period where the black hole is bad having applicants apply and not hear from us is bad sure now let’s automate it where they do have a conversation that’s good but now it’s swinging to okay that’s bad because it’s not authentic it’s not human it’s not real yeah it can’t be one or the other like where do we go from here do we scale human beings does the AI get that much better that we don’t know the difference between a human and a rope you’re not in your head yet I think going to tell me what does the future look like I it’s going to be indistinguishable at some point where you won’t know if you’re speaking to a human or not and that’s good from an efficiency perspective but that’s also meaning you’re replacing human beings so there’s going to be a balance of that I think with every era of Technology technological advancement it’s a reduction or an augmentation of the labor force saw it with the change with the Advent of Auto automobiles uh assembly lines uh you know every Progressive advancement it removes some of the manual task from it but and it creates a whole another industry that didn’t exist before and I think people forget that that yes some things might go away but it’s going to create a whole bunch of opportunities in places that we don’t even know yet give me your take on the current state of of Dei yeah a few years ago it was like yes that’s a good thing let’s do it it became politicized weaponized sure company stepped back didn’t want to touch it what’s the current state of of that issue yeah I so I think we’re at a point where Dei is now going through its own rebranding and if you if you if you’re a student of this space you know that for the past 60 years there’s been a series of progressions and regressions it’s just a natural EB and flow when you start making progress people will pull it back but the key is you’re incrementally moving forward um I think we’re at a point right now where we’re being honest about what can change what people are willing to change and then what can we do within that con uh construct what are we doing within the context of employer brand and recruitment marketing honest are we going to be about our culture um you know what are we going to do as a company as far as what we’re donating to or not anymore and some companies have made headlines for pulling their commitments back all the way yeah based on pressures from activist investors uh perceived risk for their consumer bases whatever the case may be um the challenge is that the issues for the people who are most marginalized didn’t go away because a company rolled back its commitments so they’re going to have to contend with it in some way jumping back to technology real quickly uh 2024 what were the tech trends that stood out to you you do a lot of vendors so I’m sure your take on this is pretty interesting 2024 yeah so this year it’s been a lot of uh automation AI has been the buzzword in everybody’s Tech platform um but I think getting to candidates faster uh whether it be through your recruitment marketing efforts um getting uh better or higher quality candidates through uh automation storytelling and video a lot of video uh platforms uh an ambassadorship uh for existing employees to be amplifiers of the brand so I think we’ve seen a lot of that this year and it’s really a circle back to maybe like 2016 17 where that was sort of emerging now we’re having a Renaissance technolog is becoming better um but interestingly enough I think we’re going to see more of that we’re going to have to let’s talk about that we took a step back now let’s look forward what kind a from now what will the tech Trends be that we uh talked about well I think AI is going to get smarter um I think that there’s going to be while the advancement of the technolog is inevitable I think you’re also going to start to see more of a double down on human centered experience so it’s not just going to a conference and setting up a booth it’s what experience are you creating for specific demographics different um functions different roles outside of the the vendor floor and in a more intimate space so that people can start really building and and establishing relationship okay so you say AI will be smarter I guess it’ll be left to to find out if humans get Dumber in that process but thanks for sitting out sitting down with us uh for those listeners and viewers that want to connect with you or learn more about Shaker where do you send them shaker.com first and foremost uh we have a brand new site at gorgeous a lot of good information and you can always find me on LinkedIn so shaker.com that’s it easy peasy Noto cheesy thanks man enjoy the rest of the show appreciate you [Music]