AI, Adaptability, and The Future of Recruiting with Brittany Keller

Hello, social media followers, LinkedIn, Facebook, and everyone tuning into our show. Welcome to Beyond the Offer podcast. I’m your host, Rosanna Snediker, joined by my co-host and friend, Bill Gates. Thanks for tuning in as we tackle the latest trends in talent acquisition and human resources.

Today we’re sitting down with Brittany Keller. Brittany is a longtime contact of Hirewell, who has an impressive background in talent acquisition within the trading technology, PE, and financial services space. She’s currently the director of global talent acquisition at Sphera. We’re very excited to have you on the podcast.

Welcome to Beyond the Offer, Brittany. Hi, how are you? Welcome. We’re doing well. How are you today? Good. And actually, I’m exciting. I’m now VP, so

Oh, VP. Oh gosh. Congratulations. Yeah. Okay. Well, we just- Congratulations. Does your LinkedIn say that? I pulled that from LinkedIn, so I’ll have to

I just updated on Friday.

Sorry. Busy. It’s okay. I did do this a day or two before that. Yeah. So congratulations, VP. Thank you. Well we like to start off with every guest, we just want to kind of get to know you, get to know [00:01:00] yourself, and how you got into talent acquisition, so tell us a little bit about that. Yes. So honestly, it was by mistake.

I didn’t really know much about HR or recruiting roles in general, nor did I think I was ever gonna be interested in it. I actually fell into sales altogether very much by mistake. I was one of the lucky people to graduate from college in ’08, right before the massive recession, and jobs were becoming very scarce.

People were getting rescinded offers, so I knew at least if I went into sales and I made more money than the people sitting next to me, I would never get fired. And luckily I made more money than everyone sitting next to me, so I did not get let go, and I’m doing that for almost, it was like 9, 10 years.

And then, some people in my network that had worked at the company I worked at, they ended up at a recruiting agency. I was kind of poking my head up looking for something new, and then just kind of accidentally fell into recruiting, and I absolutely love it. and I probably will end up making this my career for the rest of my life.

Well, I [00:02:00] never say never, just because, you know, I, I might get bored, but who knows? But I absolutely love it. It’s been a really fun ride, and now I’ve been doing this for, gosh, showing my age, probably close to eight, nine, almost 10 years. So, yeah, I guess I went out of college for that. Wow, okay. Wow. Oh, nice.

Nice. I was an ’08 grad too, so I can totally relate too, oh my gosh. Yeah. Did you do recruiting then right away out of- I did. I started an agency- Good for you. ‘Cause I was like, “I guess I’ll just take whatever job I can get.” Yeah, you just make more money than the person that’s sitting next to you, right?

Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like so many good people get into recruiting that have sales backgrounds. It’s so similar, so. Yeah. Well, it’s just you’re selling a different product, people versus other things, so yeah. Yeah. Absolutely Well, you, and you started obviously, you know, in the agency environment and now are in-house. But what kind of changed Brittany in how you, you know, evaluate a hire, once you’re building a team versus,working with multiple different companies? Oh, that’s a good question. [00:03:00] And I always say this ’cause I personally like to hire, you’ll see on my team here internally, I like to hire people that come from agency, especially with the volume of recruiting we do at my current company.

But it is a different mindset when you’re going into it. When you’re agency, I hate to say this, but it’s a dollar sign, right? At the end of the day, you wanna close that. Of course you wanna provide, you know, good candidates and value to the customer. You wanna provide market value, but it’s much different relationship when you are internal.

I personally love to follow my hires’ journeys now that I’m internal, ’cause you learn something for that so you can get better at recruiting in the future. It’s also something that’s very hard. At least I had a difficult time transitioning from agency to in-house, ’cause, you know, you can make more money being agency, let’s be honest.

And kind of, changing your mindset over that where, you don’t wanna close roles always as quickly as possible. You wanna focus on finding the best candidate ’cause you’re protecting [00:04:00] the company. You are now part of the HR department, which is to protect the company overall and find the right person that’s gonna stay as long as possible versus getting it closed, move on to your next fill.

And you’re not really thinking as much about the longevity of a candidate ’cause as long as they get past, like, that year, year and a half, they kind of forget if it’s your service or not, if that makes sense, ’cause it’s not really your ownership anymore at that point as an agency recruiter. So I just think it’s a slightly tweak.

You’re still providing the same service. You still need a partner. You still need to understand. But I guess I look at candidates differently from a longevity perspective than I did when I was agency, I would say. Like, I’m pretty harsh on job hoppers when it comes to reviewing resumes now, where I probably wasn’t as much agency-wide.

Yeah. Makes sense. Well, and, you don’t have to memorize or know, you know, 10 different, 15 different company stories, right? Of course. You know? Right? Yeah. That’s probably

Yeah, and that’s why I think it’s really hard when I speak to recruiters that, like, sure, they sit within a certain, you know, I work on Java engineers and that’s it, [00:05:00] but I work across five different industries.

I think that’s so hard as an agency recruiter, whereas, like, when I worked agency, I focused trading, prop trading, finance. So they have similar stories, just a little tiny bit of twist on how they get the, you know, the juice squeezed. Yeah. I don’t think a lot of agency recruiters that work across tons of industries get enough credit for what they do.

I think that’s, and that’s why you should get paid more, right? So there you go. We like to hear that. We like to, yeah. We won’t tell you any different there, but, yeah. Well, talking about some of the industries you’ve worked in, you mentioned trading, you know, financial services. You’ve been part of PE-backed organizations.

Yeah. Those are industries that look for top talent. What has been your recruiting strategy for you and for the teams you manage to be able to attract and retain those type of candidates for those high caliber organizations? Yeah. I think it comes down to, and I’ve said this through my entire career. Whatever sales you’re doing, it comes down to, I call it facts finding needs [00:06:00] analysis. You need to figure out the facts of the situation, the needs. You need to analyze it against what you are offering and move forward as such. Like, you’re never going to find a high qualified strong candidate for the role if you do not understand the candidate’s needs, the facts of the situation and yours and analyze it against it.

So that’s the biggest thing I push on with my team when training. When they are calling to ask me about help with closing a candidate, I will not talk to them until they have that all written up for me and what, how they would go about that and approaching that aligned to the role. You’re always gonna find top tier caliber candidate ’cause top tier caliber candidate means something different to every human in this world.

People, I don’t think, give recruiters and HR people in general enough credit. We have one of the hardest jobs on this planet. We are dealing with humans, which are the most unpredictable things on this planet. So, I don’t, I hate to say, like, this is a top tier candidate versus this one, ’cause everyone has different [00:07:00] needs.

Everyone has different facts around the situation and what is a top tier candidate to them. So I hate, I hate, I hate using that word with people- Yeah … just ’cause I don’t think that’s fair. I know that’s not answering your question like you want it to. But I think it’s really digging down into what the needs are of the hiring manager, what the needs are from the candidate, the facts given to you at hand, and how you can kind of connect those dots.

I mean, at the end of the day, we’re professional matchmakers, so. Right. Yeah. It’s dating, but just professionally. It truly is. Yeah. Yeah. Dating for the professional world. Yeah. But as you said, I mean, with hiring managers, one hiring manager, I, you know, is gonna want s- they may have a higher caliber bar than the other, right?

And they, or if you ask, you know, probably another good example is you ask 10 people at, you know, your same company, “What’s your culture like?” You might get 10 different answers potentially. A hundred percent. You know? But- Yeah. You know, there’s probably- Well, and then you have some hiring managers that are so obsessed with, like, you know, the Harvards, the Stanfords of

the world. Yep. Whereas, [00:08:00] yes, Others don’t, others don’t care. I think those are great educations. Yeah. Yeah, but, you know, there’s tons of smart kids that had to put themselves through school. They can grind it out. And maybe they didn’t go to a Harvard or a Stanford. Maybe they went to a Purdue. And they might be a stronger candidate because they have more grit, and they can-

So I think you have to figure out what that caliber means to every hiring manager, and then deliver on that. No, I totally agree. It’s just, I hate to put those labels on, ’cause they’re people at the end of the day, right? Yep. For sure. Absolutely. Well, and you’ve managed teams through just several hiring cycles now.

Yeah. What’s something you’ve done, or you did for the first time, you know, when the market turned that you wouldn’t do again now that you’ve been through it a, a few different times and seen the market shift? Yeah. You mean, the market shift from, a capacity perspective on the available candidates?

Just to confirm. Yeah.If you look at the rollercoaster ride of going through COVID in 2020 to ’21 and ’22. I mean, [00:09:00] just the last six years have been wild. Yeah. Yeah. It changes every six months. Yeah, it definitely does. But- Yeah. You don’t really realize until you look back six months typically later.

Outside of COVID when you just kind of flip the switch and everyone’s, well, in a pandemic and inside and, working remotely. But, like, how have you just kind of navigated through those cycles? Yeah. That’s a good question. Yeah, it’s definitely been wild. I mean, I remember in 2022 if you were a recruiter and you got a phone call with a hiring manager, they were offering you insane money.

It was crazy. I remember one of the offers I got, and I was like, “You’re gonna fire me in a year. this isn’t gonna be real life.” Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, it’s just staying consistent. Especially since COVID, it’s been so tumultuous, like you mentioned, like a rollercoaster up and down. You need to just stay consistent.

I’ve seen downturns where marketing has been, you know, there’s 10 qualified people to one role. Or right now the FP&A space I would say is super, super tight. You’re, you’re competing against three [00:10:00] to four other companies for one qualified person. But it all comes around. I think at the end of the day your strategy and your numbers and how many in-mails you’re putting out a week, how many interviews you’re doing, you know, networking calls you’re doing, those numbers need to stay consistent in whatever market.

‘Cause there’s definitely been times where, you know, I’ve not had a lot of jobs, and I’m still consistently reaching out and networking, and having calls. And then you turn around a year later, and you can make a placement, and since you already had that relationship in place, they remember you from a year ago.

You are gonna matter so much more to them than the 10 other Joe Schmos that have called them as of recent, and they have the job they need you to fill right now. So honestly, I think, again, it brings back we are a professional network. It’s the staying consistent, keeping your black book, if you will, thick and heavy, and just remembering who you spoke to and where that’s gonna work out.

One of my first conversations I had as an agency recruiter was with a person who was an engineer in the trading space. [00:11:00] I placed him seven years later at Gilt, at my, one of my companies I worked with. So, and that was just from a relationship I had from forever. So it’s, yeah, I think it’s just staying consistent, and just reminding yourself too, even when you get insanely busy and you feel like you can’t make one more call, or you’re really bored and you can do 20 in a day.

Yeah. Yeah. Valid. I love that you say that too, ’cause I feel like that is such an agency mentality. But to see that on the internal side too and how it pays off. And it can flip so quickly. Like, I think back to

so quickly

beginning of 2020 when we had nothing to work on, and we’re all just making networking calls, and then all of a sudden it’s like we had all these jobs and we needed people, so the consistency

and those people remembered you

Yeah

’cause you were the ones who was calling them. Exactly. So they really, they probably worked with you first over, say, me or somebody else, right? Right. And I have those same stories of like, oh my gosh, I talked to this person almost 10 years ago, and then you place them finally. So it is- Those are my favorite hires.

I know. It feels so fulfilling. Yeah. And when you’ve done recruiting as long as the three of [00:12:00] us, like, you all have those stories.

So, well, I guess talking about kind of, you know, five years ago, five years ahead, if you were building a TA team from scratch today, what’s a role or a skill set that you’d hire for now that maybe didn’t even exist five years ago?

Oh, interesting. I mean, there’s a lot. I feel like that’s a… The thing is I, yes, we use AI. But I look at AI as a tool for people to use, not a replacer, at least in recruiting. Again, we’re still dealing with humans, unpredictable. AI can’t predict humans. They’re not gonna spit out something that tells me, “Oh, this candidate is going to have a death in a family that’s gonna make us renege on his offer next week.”

Like, there, there’s always gonna be situations like that where we need to pivot quickly and have backups in the back of our mind that AI or a computer just won’t. I think overall, I mean, you’re gonna hate this answer then. I probably wouldn’t change. Maybe that makes me resistant to change. No. [00:13:00] It’s more about hiring people that are open to change and adding tools to their tool belt.

But I think we should always be hiring for people. Like I’m, I say I will be a forever learner. I always will push to grow, learn something new. Personally, I’ll get bored if I don’t do that, and I think you need to find people like that, that don’t want to just clock in, clock out, especially in recruiting.

So I would say I’ve always, I always will and probably have in the past hired for people that are open to that, ’cause not everyone is. Versus I would say a specific skill. ‘Cause quite frankly, like going into the market and finding the best recruiter who knows how to use, you know, AI tools all day long to hire, that’s probably gonna mean nothing in a year.

So then what am I gonna do with that person? So, I hate to say that, it’s just the reality. And I feel like people get so stuck on the now right now and what is bad and what is hot. Yes, you can get stuck on it, but learn it because it’s gonna change. I think things are changing now faster than they ever did just [00:14:00] because of the access to technology we have.

So I think it’s more focusing on people that know how to use things and learn things quickly and adapt. Yeah. I don’t know if that answers your questions or not, or have I just confused it more, but I think- No, I actually really like that answer. I think having people that are adaptable versus, like, having a strong skill set in one thing can go much further.

Right. Hard skills can always be taught. Soft skills, I’m sorry, at this age of your life you either have them or you don’t. Right. Like, I hate to say that. You’re, you’re, like, you know,I think after, like, 22, 23, 24, those soft skills are pretty cemented. You only can shift them a little bit. So, yeah.

But you can always teach hard skills. Especially with, like, LinkedIn Learning, you can download anything online now. AI has taught me how to build reports in it for me to spit out how many LinkedIn emails you need to send out for different job profiles. Like, I mean, AI teaches me how to use AI. It’s great.

Yeah, it’s good. And I feel like that’s, I like the answer in regard to, like, using the different types of tools accordingly. And, I think [00:15:00] one, you know, good transitionary question is, I mean, especially with a lot of these tools, especially if you’re talking, maybe if you’re dealing with, like, more of a higher volume-type job, it might be a little bit easier to use technology that can be a bit more transactional.

But, you know, transitioning to, like, leadership hires, you know, they’re not gonna be wanting to talk to any sort of AI bot. No. in terms of an-

Especially if you’re the one sourcing and pulling them in. Like, you know, it’s, if someone reached out to me and was like, “I want you to work for me, but I need you to interview with my AI person first,” I’d block them.

Like, absolutely not. Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see how things definitely evolve and that, if that becomes more of a new norm, but, Yeah. Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see. I agree. Yeah. But we do currently, it’s well over 50, 60% of our hires are all outreach.

For sure. Yeah. So we do very little application. Also, I hate to say this, be devil’s advocate, AI has also made it harder for us to do [00:16:00] applicants. So, people are really gonna hate me for saying this, we don’t post a lot of our roles because the amount of time it takes for my recruiters to go through those resumes, see if they’re valid or not and even if they’re real resumes and not AI generated, takes more time and more of a waste of time than for them to just reach out to people on LinkedIn themselves and set up calls.

And it’s also a lot more personal than I think a lot of other larger companies are doing. So, people are gonna hate me for that answer, but that’s reality. We don’t post a lot of our jobs. Well, and you’re more, you can be a bit more deliberate with it too, right? Of course. Where you’re requesting the folks that you’re looking for based on their resume versus the discretion of a person that’s applying to a job.

They’re kind of like, “Eh, I’ll read it for, like, two seconds, and then I’ll just hit apply and then move on with my life.” But, you know, on the flip side, the candidate side of the spectrum too, there’s the same frustration of when they apply and they never hear anything back. Of course. So it’s a two-

Yeah, and I’m sure we’ve done that a lot too, which [00:17:00] I’m definitely not proud of, and I harp on my team. But it’s kind of the reality. That’s why I say networking. You should just network, go to events, get involved with you know, different meetups and groups. I’ve been very fortunate.

My last, actually all my jobs since college, I’ve gotten through networking. But I think with this day and age, especially with how tight the job market is, it’s more important than ever. For sure. Which leads to a good, you know, next follow-up question in regard to kind of leadership hires. How does, or how have you needed to, tweak the process, for hiring leadership roles?

And maybe those aren’t necessarily just C-suite, but, you know, VP, kind of director-level positions versus just your general, you know, lower level individual contributor job. How we’ve had to tweak it. Those tend to be the roles we don’t post. Yeah. To be honest. We post very few like the job descriptions- I do use AI for them, to try to keep them cleaned up.[00:18:00]

And we pull from the market and the profiles we’re getting. That helps a little bit. But those are kind of our- Well, and I mean more from, I mean more from like a, you know, like an interview process side of the equation, you know? So like, you know, how do you need to tweak that accordingly to keep the process moving smoothly?

Who do you get, need to get involved? You know, how do you make it a smoother and good solid candidate experience because there’s, you know, just like those folks, they’re gonna be just as busy in some, so many capacities as your leadership team too. So

you gotta be very, that was a good question. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, misunderstood that.  Interview process for more senior people, especially VP level engagement with the executive team out the get-go. They should be. At least somebody at the executive level and/or, like, a peer. So that’s kind of my first engagement.

So I’ll do a sales call. I call it a flip call. So if you, like, reach out to somebody first, you sell them the company first, make sure there’s alignment. Obviously people know themselves better than I probably ever will. And then we’ll flip them, talk about the role, and [00:19:00] kind of set them up. So usually those engagements early on.

I do have to say those senior roles tend to be a little bit longer of an interview process, especially on our end. Yeah, we probably sometimes have six to seven interviews, which I know sounds a little crazy. But at the same time, it’s very important because if they’re coming in and leading a group of 100 people, we need to make sure they’re the right fit.

And then we typically do in-person interviews, which I know a lot of companies don’t do anymore. So I think that’s important for you to meet with the executive before you move forward with an offer. Other than that, like our more lower level roles, we knock those out in two, three interviews max.

So we move pretty quickly. Those are more competitive on the candidate side, I would say, though. So, you can get a good qualified group of people pretty quickly. So that’s probably why we can get away with, like, less interviews. But no, there’s a lot of hands-on engagement, a lot of back and forth, a lot of conversations with me, a lot of conversations with people across the business.

[00:20:00] Like for example, my GVPs of sales, they meet with the CRO at least two, three times, and the CEO. Yeah, and I think that’s probably pretty expected on the candidate end too. Yeah. Right? Yeah. They want to make sure you have met with enough people for them to make the right decision too, if it’s the right place to join.

Also, a candidate that wouldn’t want to meet with those people that many times, I would be a little concerned about. Yeah. Right. For sure. Well, and you’re probably in constant communication with those candidates too, just, like, checking in on the process, you know, what else they have going on. Yeah.

Because the process is longer, so. Yeah, yeah. Big texter with candidates. Yeah. Not to take it back to AI, but we did have a few questions we did want to ask you about that. ‘Cause I feel the same. I’m very much like I want to embrace it, but there’s so many things in recruitment that need to stay human and that, you know, are important to keep that human element.

I guess when you look at recruiting a few years from now, what part of the process do you think can be fully AI-driven, and what do you think does [00:21:00] 100% need to stay, you know, human-focused? Yeah. I would say the lower level roles, I think can be moved probably now, to AI scanned. I mean, a lot of people are anyways already running their resume through AI to make sure they’re putting on their buzzwords and all that good stuff.

So, I think those. I think more senior people, senior level roles, I do think should still have at least right now, maybe in the future AI will get good enough to kind of be part of that process as well, but I think that’s something that can be driven by AI. I think maybe, like, if you have call centers that you’re staffing and things like that, you could probably get away with at least a couple, like at least the first round AI-driven as well.

I know we use LinkedIn a lot, as I’m sure you guys do. They’re actually trying to figure out how to do some of that interview as well into LinkedIn Recruiter. So if you’re actually sourcing and reaching out to people, it’ll prompt some questions, some like knockout questions, if you will. So I know there’s already been some things that we’ve been kind of looking at and [00:22:00] trying from that perspective to kind of help.

But I think any part of the process after the first, maybe lower level second round interviews, there does need to be a human. I don’t think AI should be negotiating salary. I don’t think AI should be talking to somebody about what they’re looking for and how this role delivers to it. ‘Cause you, you guys know it.

When you’re speaking to someone, you can hear the change in their voice, and if they’re really meaning what they’re saying or when they deliver it, if they’re kind of questioning it themselves. Hopefully AI will get way better, that it can pick up on those inflection points. But from what I’ve seen right now, it’s still a little bit, robotic, if you will.

So, I also feel like getting an offer is super exciting. I would want it from a human, not from a robot. And that’s my favorite part of the job. I would still want to personally do that, even though it was like a lot. But, there’s a lot of AI, like, robots from an interview perspective.

We’ve had a few, like, fake [00:23:00] humans, interviewing, and I’m not, I haven’t seen it successfully happen yet. Maybe we haven’t used it enough, like AI’s been able to pick up on that. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that at all, but we’ve had some people come up that were not real humans on some interviews on, and we’ve had to take.

So AI, at least from us, hasn’t been able to pick that up yet, that they’re fake. Yeah. Has it been certain skill sets you’re seeing that more common in? Like, is it in the tech space or … Tech. Yeah. Very heavily in the tech. We have some AI roles open, and I think we’ve, like, that’s the big area where we’re seeing some, like, fake, not real humans candidates.

Or we had one person, yeah, who obviously was just, like, interviewing for different roles, and they had a different, it’s just been, it’s been interesting. AI’s been great, but it also complicates the overall process, right? For sure. Makes it more complicated. You’ve got to peel back layers and check, checks and balances more.

Yeah. Have you had good experience with any, [00:24:00] like, sourcing AI tools, or how do you feel about AI for sourcing so far? Yeah. The LinkedIn Recruiter sourcing tools are great. I don’t know if you’ve done where you’ve dropped in the job description, or you can actually build off searches off of, like, current employees.

And you can say, “Hey, this is the head of the department. He would like somebody, or she would like somebody who is earlier on in their career. Can you build that off of this profile?” So we’ve had a lot of great success with that. Obviously, you need to do a few tweaks here and there to, like, what it populates out, and you can, but yeah, it’s been fantastic for sourcing.

I’m not a big fan of the the AI generated LinkedIn messages, because they add the dashes in there. It drives me nuts. I’m like, “Stop with the dashes.” I taught my bot. She knows not to put, yeah, I call her. Her name’s Missy. But she knows not to put them in my messaging. I mean, you have to name your, your AI chatbot.

Totally. But anywho, I can write very, we’ll just say direct emails. So [00:25:00] she’s a Southern belle, so she rewrites my emails sometimes for me so they’re a little bit nicer. But, so I don’t like doing that. I like to be, I think candidates can know when it’s an AI message on LinkedIn versus a real one.

So I don’t like to use it for that. That’s the only area. But, no, I use it a lot for sourcing. Yeah. It’s also great to just look up what are the competitors of this company? I’ve never heard of this company before, can you give me a two-sentence overview of what they do? So then you get on with the candidate, you’re not sounding uneducated, right?

Yeah. I feel like because we have so much information at our fingertips now, if you go into any call uneducated, it’s like, why are you wasting my time? You could’ve known this in 10 seconds. Like

Totally. and I think that goes both ways for a candidate or for myself. Like, you need to be educated going into those conversations.

Yeah, it’s made the research side so easy to do that if you don’t do it

So easy.

It’s like, yeah. I mean, you can find out, like, somebody’s, where they were born with all this stuff now. It’s crazy. It’s a little invasive, but yeah. Hey, it’s the direction we’re moving. Yeah, right. But I agree.

The messaging, it’s like even when I look at my LinkedIn and the [00:26:00] messages I get, I’m like, “Okay, I can tell that’s AI written. Like, am I gonna respond to that? No.” Like, you, you want the customizations and the personalizations to be there

100%

when you’re recruiting people, so. Yeah. And like, whenever something’s like perfect vocab and they’re using, like, really big words when you could just use the word ‘the’, I’m like, “That’s AI.”

Like, come on. You know, add in a personal touch. Yeah. Well, it’s, I feel like there’s areas to use it, but it’ll, I’m sure it’ll continue to get refined. But at least it’s like, as you said for job descriptions, it’s a good benchmark to at least start with.

Then you can always adjust and change or messaging, et cetera. What about, I don’t know if you’ve seen those things, The AI tools or projects where people are using them in interview processes to get answers that they’re like especially on remote ones. It’s probably a lot harder in-person ones, but have you seen that much?

Or, you know, or it’s sometimes maybe a little bit trickier to catch potentially, but, if somebody’s using one of those AI interview tools, does that bother you? Or do you feel [00:27:00] like that’s the new normal? I think it depends on how they’re using a tool. Yeah. I think we should always use tools that are available to us to make us better, smarter, and more efficient.

But if you’re using it to answer basic questions of what you’re gonna be actually doing on the job, so for, like, example, if I was hiring a software engineer, and we wanted to ask them about something from, like, something they would actually have to physically code, and they had to AI that to give the answer so they can’t actually do it, that causes issues.

Sure, there’s gonna be some roles where they’re like, “I’m fine with you using AI to code,” but there’s gonna be a lot of jobs and companies, especially when I worked in trading, that that is extremely a no-go. Also, some of the stuff they were coding in trading, AI can’t do that for them. I mean, they’re literally trying to cut off nanoseconds on something.

So, I think if you’re using it to support your interview answers but not giving them. Yeah. I know that’s a blurry line, very [00:28:00] blurry, but I mean, it is a tool available. It’s meant to make you better, faster, more efficient. But if you don’t know how to do the foundations of something and you need AI to teach it, like, you’re not the right candidate for the role.

Also, like, why would you want that job? You’re gonna be miserable at it, and you’re gonna be miserable every day. Right. Like, no one wants to fail every day. Failures, yeah. Like, you’re just gonna go home and cry every night. Like

It’s such a good point .

Get a job you know what you’re doing and you’re, like, happy doing, right?

So I think a lot of people, they forget that piece. They forget their value, what they bring to the table, and they’re so focused on trying to, like, fit themselves to a square peg because that’s the role that they’re interviewing for, and that’s what they’re available. Like, it’s okay as a candidate to say, “No, I can’t do that.

This is what I can do.” Like, it’s okay to say that ’cause you’re gonna be miserable. And we’re gonna find out and fire you in two months anyway, so. That’s a good point. Yeah, that is a good point. And that looks worse on your resume than just being unemployed. Yeah, and then going back to the job hoppiness you talked about in the beginning.

Yeah. Exactly. So, I just think there’s so [00:29:00] much pressure right now on people to find something because there’s so many people posting on LinkedIn about how they’re unemployed and all that, and then obviously that. I’ve never seen, and maybe you guys can correct me, I’ve never seen how vocal people have been on LinkedIn about how long they’ve been looking for jobs and how long they’ve been unemployed ever in my career, even, like, back in, you know, 2009, 2010 when there was a lot more people unemployed than now.

So I think that’s giving people a level of uncertainty in the space that’s maybe a little bit more heightened than what it should be, and I think it’s making people do things that they potentially wouldn’t do otherwise. So I think people just need to take a step back and breathe a little bit. I don’t know if you’ve seen that.

I just feel like with the whole new banner, Open to Work, and things like that, I think it’s created a different, but who knows? Maybe I’m really off by the unemployment numbers. No one really knows what’s right anymore, right? So. Yeah. It’s [00:30:00] so up and down. I agree, though. I do feel like you just see people really putting a lot more out there on LinkedIn, and just the posts about it, which to each his own, obviously.

But. Yeah. Definitely, for sure. Back to your original point, like, if you’re doing AI for the interview and then you can’t actually do the job, you’re gonna be unhappy. It’s not gonna work out. So it’s just not successful. Yeah, you’re gonna be miserable. You have a manager every day telling you that you’re wrong and you’re not doing anything right.

Like, that’s awful. Yeah. I think it has become, I mean, you’ve kind of had some cross-blend between the TikToks and Instagrams that are getting blurred into LinkedIn of people, like, venting about a certain instance that has happened or whatnot, which, yeah, you know, it’s fine, I think, in some respects.

But, you know, if you think about it longer term, is that something you might regret later on down the line that a future employer might see, and they may or may not hire you based on a post like that, you know? It’s just another way to air your dirty laundry or your, I don’t know. It’s, obviously, I feel like some of those posts do get a ton of traction, though, on [00:31:00] LinkedIn, though.

It’s crazy to me. They do. Yeah. And then I think it makes, like, a false uncertainty on what’s in the market. Correct. Like I said, it just comes down to consistency, networking, talking to people. Like, take every- like, even when I’m happily employed and I’m not looking, I’m not saying I’m trying to go anywhere or anything, but, like, I take calls to network, ’cause you never know

what’s gonna happen in the future. But yeah, we have the same thing with our generation. It was just Facebook, which is

yeah, exactly. For sure. Yeah. But I feel like they taught you when you were interviewing, like, put everything private. You don’t want your employers looking at your Facebook, like.

Delete all those photos. I can’t believe you went to a party in college. Right. Right. Yeah. You’ve not been looking that up. Now it’s, now it’s like the opposite. Now it’s like that’s all that’s out there. Yeah. Get it all. Get as many followers as possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, AI is a blessing and a curse, I’ll say that.

It’s helped a lot of things. It’s made people more efficient, better at their jobs, smarter, more information at your fingertips, but, you know, [00:32:00] with everything comes a downsize, right? Yeah. Absolutely. 100%. Great. Well, we love to wrap it up with just some kind of more casual fun questions. We’ve appreciated talking about all this fun recruiting AI work talk.

But did want to ask you a few things, more on the personal side, kind of unfiltered. So, curious, you know, we all said we’ve been doing this for, multiple years, working for a few decades now. How do you stay motivated? Especially whenever, you know, there’s hard stretches at work or just kind of down times.

How do you pick yourself back up? That’s a good question. I feel like this turned into a therapy session. Honestly, I work out a lot. Yeah. I’m a gym rat. That keeps me sane, I would say, more than motivated. I think, again, the motivation comes down to I just think this job is easier to stay motivated in than when I did different kinds of sales because you’re dealing with humans’ lives.

And you’ve delivered offers, especially those offers where, like, it’s a huge bump up in someone’s salary, or they maybe hadn’t had a job or a [00:33:00] single interview in, like, three, four months. Or it’s, you know, and my favorite sometimes are those campus hires and they get their first job offer, and they cry on the phone, like, you- I know. It, like, breaks your heart. It’s so sweet. Yeah, it’s great. So I just think I always stay motivated ’cause there’s always going to be, like, if as long as you keep going, there’s gonna be a situation like that makes those long days, like where I said earlier in the call, like, I worked 30 hours by Wednesday morning at 9:00 AM, it makes all of that worth it ’cause you are, you’re not only just changing that person’s life, you’re changing their, like, family’s lives, their situation.

Which is really cool. Like, it’s really cool. So. And I hate to say this, but, like, there’s always gonna be pieces of every job you have in life that you’re gonna kinda not like. So it’s like, just suck up and do it and move on. Yes. I completely agree. Those are the ones I try to do first, and then I move on to the fun stuff.

Yeah. When you go to the gym, are you, like, doing classes? What, any fun? Yes. I do HIIT classes, yoga, and I’m a [00:34:00] runner. Okay. So, I do a little bit of everything. I like to mix it up. Yeah. I’ve run, I’ve run less this year because it doesn’t seem like we can get one day where it doesn’t rain. The weather.

I’m so mad it’s, like, sunny outside right now. It’s always nice on, like, Monday. Yeah. And then the weekends are horrible. On Monday. On the days I don’t go to the office, of course, so there you go. Have you ran any big races or anything? No, I actually haven’t in a while. I did two half-marathons in a year, which I know there’s, like, marathon runners out there, and they do two or three in a year, but I felt like that was a lot for me.

That’s good. It’s also just, like, a lot of commitment. I try to stick around the three to five miles. Every once in a while when I’m feeling really good, I’ll hit seven. But, yeah, I just, maybe it’s my ADD, I just can’t run longer than that without going crazy. Like, the half-marathon was hard, like more mentally than my body.

And watch you guys both run marathons all the time, and I’m like, Bill’s ran a marathon. He can,

he can chime in there. Me neither. I like barely did a half and I was like, “And I would have to do this for another two hours?” I [00:35:00] was like, “Absolutely not. I’m-” I couldn’t agree with you more.

The half, half was actually fine. I didn’t mind that, but- I’m like, “That was brutal” The marathon I didn’t even like train or anything, and

What?

It was like

Wait, what was your time? Like four, like, I mean, four hours or so. And you didn’t train? No. I mean, I ran the first, this is a while, this is a ways back.

It was at the Chicago- That’s like insane. People struggle to finish it in five, and you didn’t train and you did it. So there’s a lot of people that are gonna listen to this and just hate you, just so you know, so. Well, well, if it makes you, if it makes you feel any better, I mean, like that’s what I,

I was so bored.

That’s why I would never do one again, quite honestly because I walked like the first or the second half of it ’cause I had like a, you know, I didn’t train and I got like cramp. And your knee. And your knee probably too, yeah. Exactly. So, but yeah, no. I couldn’t agree more on the, the marathon piece.

Running for four hours is exhausting, or just it’s boring. Two hours is fine. I think it’s so mentally [00:36:00] hard. Like, those people that finish marathons from a mental perspective are just like, they’re…

Yeah. I have a friend, she’s running three. She’s doing three in one full year, not a calendar year, but one year, and she’s running them in different countries, so she’s kinda using it as a way to travel.

Oh, that’s cool. And I’m just like in awe, in awe, but it’s her life. Yeah. I’m in awe of those Ironman people that are running for like 12 hours or something and they do a full marathon, and then a tri- yeah, a tri- all that. Oh. Yeah. It’s insane. That’s absolutely insane. Yeah, and I don’t like to swim, and I also, fun fact, I haven’t been on a bike since I was 20.

Oh. So 20 years, so like just getting on a bike again kinda scares me. I know that’s weird, but I’m just not a fan. Yeah. Well, it’s, I get that, it provides a little bit more variety eventually, especially once we get older and our bodies start breaking down. It might be, unfortunately. Yeah, maybe I’ll try that.

Some other alternative. But I’d be curious too ’cause so many recruiters are kind of all, you know, we operate in like fast pace. Like, how many recruiters truly enjoy running marathons? [00:37:00] Yeah, exactly. Well, Bill obviously does. He just did one with no training. This, I did that this was like eight, this was like eight, seven, eight years ago.

This was not like yesterday. I know. I’m just giving you a hard time. I love it. I love it. Are there, another question we had, any books, podcasts, or people you kinda look up to that’d be your, you’d point out to our listeners, I guess. Is there anyone you’re thinking of?

Any books, podcasts, people? Should’ve came prepared. But so you’re gonna hate me ’cause I’m on a podcaster literally right now, recording one. I don’t listen to podcasts. Oh, really? I know I’m awful. Kill me now. It’s just not something I’ve ever gotten into. I’m a big reader, but I don’t really read anything besides, obviously I have my, like, different, financial news stuff.

I still, very heavy, I read that every morning when I wake up. .So I read some financial stuff in the morning, and I read almost every single night. But it’s really messed up, kind of like horror, thriller, murder books, that are kind of

That’s cool, too. There’s so many

That’s how you get away. You kinda

Yes.

And, like, I’m [00:38:00] just, I’m a reader. I don’t watch a ton of TV, but when I watch TV I always have the captions on ’cause I have to read the TV, and I just can’t engage with TV unless I’m reading it. I know that’s also very weird. So it’s kind of my, like, separation, I would say, from work. I should get into podcasts, but just thinking about actively having to listen or read something too close to work after working like 60, 70 hour weeks just sounds awful to me as I say that out loud.

So no, I’m probably the worst host. I’m sure people have great ideas and great things for everyone that listens that they’re like, “Oh, this is so inspirational.” I guess I’m just not. I really like The Real Housewives of Broadway. There you go. Hey, no, it doesn’t have to be work motivated. It could be fun too.

Yeah. So I love that. Okay, last question for you then. Yeah. This is not work-related. What is an ideal Saturday look like for you? And it, you can’t be working, so no, no working on Saturday. Okay. I’m not allowed to work. Okay. Most days I do, but I don’t. So I [00:39:00] love to sleep in, ’cause I work very early hours during the week.

Like tomorrow I start at 4:00 AM. So I’ll sleep in, and then I’ll go work out probably around like 10:00-ish or so. And then if I can find any friends at the gym we will get brunch. Oh. Then I’ll usually lay on my couch. I really like to watch SVU re-runs. And then I always will do dinner with some friends.

That’s one of my favorite things to do is I love going out to eat in Chicago. There’s always something new popping up. But I’m an early person, so even on the weekends, like I like to do dinner at like 6:00 PM, ’cause I do like to be home by 9:30, 10:00 in bed. Yeah, I’m not that fun now that I’m talking out loud.

I have a feeling

That sounds ideal.

I think you’re kind of a, seems like you’re a crime buffie. I mean, who doesn’t like a little SVU in after work? Millennials. Millennials love SVU. Like, don’t come for me. I actually don’t like, but I love like all those things that come out on Netflix for like. Like true crime? The murder, the yeah, the murderer. Like they, you know. I’m trying to think of some of the ones that have come out recently. But like, [00:40:00] you know, there’s a bunch of them. I feel like they come out three or four, every few months, right? But yeah, I definitely am into the crime stuff too. The 2020 and Dateline used to be like a big thing that I used to but then now that, now it seems like they’re all the exact same, you know? So. Yeah. I don’t know It’s very much a millennial thing.I have some Gen Zs on my team, and if I talked about SVU or something like, even Bravo, they don’t, they don’t engage. They don’t like. That’s funny. Yeah, they don’t engage.

Okay. At least mine don’t. My Gen Zs don’t, but maybe others do. But yeah. That’s cool. I’m, pretty chill on the weekends. I work out, hang out with friends. I see my family a lot. I have a very, very big family. And so most, a big chunk of them are nearby in Chicago that area, ’cause I grew up here.

So there’s always some, I have five brothers, two sisters

Oh my gosh.

Eight nieces and nephews. Yes. There’s always something happening. Somebody’s doing something that they shouldn’t be doing. So yeah, I live a soap opera. So there you go. You’ve got your own family reality TV show

Yeah

with that many siblings.

[00:41:00] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, and like you said, the restaurants. I feel like Chicago always has good restaurants openings, so. The have great restaurants. Yeah, I just went to this, what was it? Petite Marcel over the weekend. A new French place in River North. That was phenomenal. I guess it’s been there for a while, and I just found it.

It was so yummy. It has

I haven’t been there

three floors. I hope I’m saying it correct. But, it was in, River North. It was so good. Yeah, they closed down my favorite restaurant, Proxy. That’s, like, right next to me where I live. Yep. They shut that down in the last year. So, but yeah, I live in the West Loop area, so there’s always something new popping up.

But I feel like there’s been a lot of fun restaurants even opening up north, like Uptown area, in that area. So, you know. Yeah. I just went to, when you said River North, I tried, Crying Tiger, which was really good. Oh, it’s so good. Yeah. Did you get a reservation, or did you wait outside in a line like I did?

We had a reservation. Oh. But it was at 4:00. So when you talked about early reservations, this was real early. 4:00 PM, so. I got there, during the winter and got into line [00:42:00] outside, this is like so sad, at 2:45 PM. They opened at 3:00. We were in line for, we were the first in line. We were in line for maybe three minutes before, like, eight people queued up behind us.

The restaurant opens at 3:00. They opened the doors five minutes early, and, like, the bar, we sat at the bar. The bar was filled up before the restaurant even officially opened. It was, but it was so good. The food was amazing. Yeah. It’s great. But I’ve never experienced something like that- Like, how crazy busy it is.

Yeah. It’s like, I feel like Armistice Jailhouse is still like that where you have to like go put your name in and then wait and yeah. But- But their walls are tiny. Like, that makes sense to me with them. They’re so small. Right. There’s like five tables. I was just there the other week too. We sat at the bar.

But yeah, we put our name in, that kind of thing, yeah. Yeah. What’d you get at Crying Tiger? Which was your favorite? We got a ton of stuff. I was with three girls and we split a ton. There was a noodle dish that I really liked.

With the crab and the lobster? Yes. Yeah, it was really good.

Because it, it came in the pot, right? In one of the pots. [00:43:00] Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And then some of the appetizers were really good too. I’ll have to look back and let you know, but yeah, it was great. I just, 4:00 PM dinner was really early, but I can do that. I like it. That’s where I eat. What’s your favorite place in the West Loop then, Brittany?

Well, it was Proxy and they decided to close. Honestly, I don’t have a, I guess I go to Trivoli a lot. I like to sit at their lobster bar. Okay. I struggle to go to Trivoli and sit in the back place in the summer because, well, except for this summer, ’cause all it’s done is rain. But it’s just, it’s a little dark back there.

I actually really like to go to Boulevard. They have that like outdoor thing that they encase in, so it’s a little sunny. They have a great happy hour. Oh. So I’ve been going to those places. I really like oysters and I like dirty martinis. So if you do a oyster happy hour and you can make a good martini, I will be there at some point of my life.

Got it. Love that. So I’m very, basic, as a lot of people will say. Right. Same here. Basic millennial, sign us up. Yeah. Sign me up. I still wear high-waisted tight [00:44:00] jeans too, and I’m never going back to a flare, so. It’ll full circle. It’ll come back around. I know. I was like, I left those like low-rise pants in the past and I would like to keep them there, so.

Well, that is all the, time we have today. Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode. Today, we met with Brittany Keller and discussed how to attract top talent, some leadership hiring, future of recruiting, and how A- AI plays into talent acquisition. We’ll be back again next month with our next special guest.

Quick reminder on how you can support our Beyond the Offer podcast, you can find all our content on Hirewell’s social media platform, which you can find through hirewell.com. Brittany, thanks for joining and thanks for everyone tuning in. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for having us.