April 10, 2025 • 44 mins
Isaac Cheifetz, Managing Principal at Catalytic1 Executive Search and Chief Mentor Recruiter at Minnesota Emerging Software Advisory, joins us this episode to discuss applying lean methodologies to talent acquisition.
[0:00] Introduction
- Welcome, Isaac!
- Today’s Topic: Applying Lean Methodology to Talent Acquisition
[9:14] Is talent acquisition really broken?
- Examining pain points for hiring managers, job seekers, CEOs, and HR teams
- Challenges in the online job application process
[18:05] How can we change talent acquisition to improve it?
- Importance of reviewing and improving job descriptions
- Integrating lean methodologies into talent acquisition processes
- Pros and cons of AI in talent acquisition
[40:08] Is formalized training required for good talent acquisition system design?
- Strategic benefits to formal training in talent acquisition system design
[41:51] Closing
- Thanks for listening!
Quick Quote
“All you have to do [when you’re designing quality job descriptions] is start with the funded business case. The role you’re hiring for is the result of a funded business initiative.”
Resources:
How to assess & improve AI competencies for Executives & BOD
Contacts:
Isaac's LinkedIn
David's LinkedIn
Dwight's LinkedIn
Podcast Manager: Karissa Harris
Email us!
Production by Affogato Media
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:00):
Announcer, the world of business is more complex than
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Welcome to the HR Data Labspodcast, your direct source for
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beyond. Now here are your hosts,David cheretsky and Dwight
Brown.
David Turetsky (00:38):
Hello and welcome to the HR Data Labs
podcast. I'm your host. DavidTuretsky, alongside my co-host,
best friend and partner, whojumps off of ridges, Dwight
Brown. Ridges, not bridges.
Dwight Brown (00:50):
I was gonna say, I don't jump off bridges.
David Turetsky (00:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all, but by the way, from
Salary.com so
Dwight Brown (00:58):
From Salary.com! Yes, yeah, but it's not
Salary.com sponsored jumping.
David Turetsky (01:04):
No! Thank goodness, although
Isaac Cheifetz (01:05):
You're life insurance coverage, I assume.
Dwight Brown (01:07):
Right, exactly.
David Turetsky (01:09):
And you heard the voice of Isaac Cheifetz.
Isaac, how are you?
Isaac Cheifetz (01:14):
I'm very well.
It's great to see you two again!
David Turetsky (01:16):
And it's great to have you on! Isaac, tell us a
little bit about you.
Isaac Cheifetz (01:20):
Well, I, like you, I'm New York, born and
bred. I spent, let's see,undergrad in history, which I
didn't know what to do with,masters in organizational psych,
which I didn't know what to dowith. Worked in as a comp
(01:41):
analyst for three years, while Iwas figuring it out. This is all
back in New York, jumped to asearch firm in the very late 80s
that did nothing but AI, if youcould believe it. So was
immersed in that world backthen.
David Turetsky (01:55):
In 1980 there was AI?
Isaac Cheifetz (01:57):
It is very mid 80s.
Dwight Brown (01:59):
Everyone thinks it's new!
David Turetsky (02:00):
Oh, so new!
Isaac Cheifetz (02:01):
No, I was placing ML researchers and list
programmers, and in that erawhen most people weren't on the
internet yet! Iremember, we wereon the internet, we were on the
internet, but the web did notexist yet. So we would get
resumes from people at Oracle orSun, but we would have to FTP
them.
David Turetsky (02:22):
Oh, sure, lovely.
Isaac Cheifetz (02:24):
And I came out to move to Minneapolis after a
summer back country in Alaska,and have been here ever since.
My career has really been I'vebeen an executive recruiter two
thirds, three quarters of mycareer. The other third, various
kinds of consulting, mostlytalent acquisition,
(02:46):
organizational design, operatingmodels, strategy. I'm not a
technologist, but I know moreabout data than your average
bear. And even though smartbears that can catch the salmon,
you know, I saw those in Alaska.
And these days, I basically dotwo things. I do retained
(03:09):
executive search, particularlyfor roles that are evolving new
roles where companies want tohire someone with classic blue
chip business experience, butwho are also sophisticated about
the new technologies, not astechnologists, but rather in
terms of how to monetize thespend on whether it's AI or
(03:30):
digital etc, etc.
David Turetsky (03:36):
That's a novel concept. Isaac actually having
to have an ROI for it?
Isaac Cheifetz (03:40):
Well, I guess, well, I mean, this stuff
interests me, and I won't. It'sthe I was always very interested
in that topic going way back.
It's a distraction from whatwe're talking about today, but
it's interesting. And the otherthing I do these days is I have
an offering called hiring as aservice, where I basically embed
(04:01):
myself in companies on a longterm basis for you know, to be
available as needed, to helpthem turbo charge the quality,
basically, to hire peoplebetter, faster and stay longer
and, and the model we'll talkabout today is a piece of that
(04:23):
puzzle.
David Turetsky (04:26):
So you're the $6 million recruiter faster.
Isaac Cheifetz (04:29):
I'm more Oscar, I'm more Oscar Goldman, but I'll
take it.
Dwight Brown (04:36):
And there's, there's a certain portion of our
audience is going, hm?
Isaac Cheifetz (04:39):
They have no idea Johnny Carson was, there's
no way you know Oscar Goldman.
Yes, Oscar Goldman was The $6million man's boss.
David Turetsky (04:50):
Yes, he was. He was a great straight man to all
the jokes. So Isaac, what's onefun thing that no one knows
about you?
Isaac Cheifetz (04:59):
Well. My friends know it, because I can't resist
telling the story. But thesummer after Alaska, I was solo
hiking in the Montana Rockies,and I saw it was in the it was
in the late spring, and I saw abear on a ridge over me, and I
wasn't really afraid a grizzlybear. And I wasn't really afraid
(05:19):
because I'd seen lots of bearsin Alaska, I knew how to deal
with it, and one of the thingsyou're supposed to do is just
walk along and make a lot ofnoise so you don't surprise
them. So I'm walking alongsaying, Hey Bear, Hey bear, and
suddenly in front and I'mwalking up a steep incline with
probably a 50 pound pack on myback, and suddenly there's a
(05:40):
young bull moose standing rightin front of me. Yeah, looking
Dumb, dumb as can be. Oh, andyou know, he wasn't a giant. He
was a six foot moose, not aseven foot moose, but you know
it was big enough. And I, I'vebeen walking along by myself.
I'm a little spaced out. Justgo, Hey Bear. Hey Bear. So I
look at the moose, and theysaid, hey moose. And they just
(06:01):
stared at me, and I so I thoughtI had to up the ante, so I sort
of did my best rocky imitation,and I said, Yo, Moose! He
charged me because, I guess thatsounded pretty impressive. And
he charged me from 10 yardsaway. And he was so fast! And
so, you know, they look likethey're on stilts. They're so
nimble, especially on inclines,he was on top of me in three
(06:24):
seconds. Fortunately, I wasstanding next to a big tree, so
I just took one step behind thetree. He flashed by me down the
hill. I could have patted him onthe head. I didn't. And he goes
about 100 feet down the hill,and I'm standing with adrenaline
shooting out my ears, and Idon't know what to do, because I
(06:46):
know if I keep going up and hecomes after me, he'll be on me
again in seconds. But he's justchewing on shrubbery, and every
every few seconds he he lazily,sort of does the 180 with his
head like Linda, another ancientreference, Linda Blair and the
exorcist. I realized he doesn'tcare anymore. He made his point.
(07:07):
He got rid of the testosteronein his head, and I kept hiking,
and I felt really safe for therest of the trip, because I felt
statistically, the odds of beingattacked by both a moose and a
bear on the same trip werereally low. So that gave me some
hope. Well, when I got home andtold friends about it, I got a
lot of grief for you know,inciting a moose to attack!
David Turetsky (07:29):
Inciting a moose! Did you get a ticket for
inciting a moose?
Isaac Cheifetz (07:33):
No, no, no.
There were no gang peoplearound. I got away with it.
Dwight Brown (07:38):
I mean, it's not like you went up and kicked it
or anything!
David Turetsky (07:40):
Right. Nor did you, nor did you
Isaac Cheifetz (07:42):
Listen, that's for the courts to decide,
Dwight. No, I didn't.
David Turetsky (07:47):
A jury of my peers will find me innocent, I
swear.
Dwight Brown (07:50):
Yeah, what's that phrase? Don't poke the skunk,
yeah?
David Turetsky (07:56):
Don't poke the bear
Isaac Cheifetz (07:58):
Don't, don't pretend you're Rocky when
talking to a moose, yeah.
Dwight Brown (08:02):
I'm just picturing you walking down this trail
going, Hey, Bear. Hey, bear, Yomoose!
David Turetsky (08:09):
The bear looks at you and is like, I'm sorry
what genre are we in now? Whatare we trying to do? I'm getting
in the head of the bear, tryingto say, and the bear is a
director saying, What are youdoing, Isaac? Isaac, I want one
scene here. One scene! Give meone character.
Isaac Cheifetz (08:27):
David. I can't lie to you. I respect you too
much. It wouldn't make the top20 list of stupid things I've
done in my life. So I think weshould turn it aside and move
forward.
David Turetsky (08:37):
Okay, all right.
Well, that is, that is one ofthe more unique, one fun things
that we've heard in a long time.
Dwight Brown (08:43):
Yes, it is, it's so, I think you're up there for
the nomination for the the Oscaron that one. So
David Turetsky (08:53):
You get a slow clap for me. That was good. And
transitioning now to talk aboutour topic, and our topic is
going to be fascinating, whichis applying lean methodology to
talent acquisition.
(09:14):
And so question Isaac, what'swrong with talent acquisition?
Is it really broken?
Isaac Cheifetz (09:21):
I hear from a lot of people, I would say that
if I think about the threeconstituencies, maybe three or
four. I mean, who are theconstituencies for talent
acquisition? You they're thehiring managers, they're the
jobs they're the job seekers,they're the CEOs. And there's HR
(09:43):
there the talent acquisitionfolks in HR that. I mean, maybe
there are others, I don't know.
I guess legal comes in if you dosomething really awful, but
probably not. And, and, yeah, Ihear from lots of folks that
that they're just frustratedwith, each one in their own way!
The candidates are frustratedwhen they apply over and over
(10:03):
online for jobs that they'reperfect for and don't hear back.
The the folks in in HR talentacquisition are frustrated with
often having internal businessclients who don't take the
process seriously enough. TheCEOs are frustrated that this is
(10:26):
that they're just not seeing thethe consistency of quality
results that they would like tosee, that they hold other
functions up to. So, yeah, I I'mnot, I'm not saying it's
irrevocably broke. Oh, and thelast thing I'll put in there is,
I often give it talk toexecutive transition groups, and
(10:49):
I'll often say, How many of youfound your job at the executive
level through onlineapplication? And I know this
sounds crazy, I've yet to getone. Yeah, which is, which is,
which is mind blowing.
David Turetsky (11:06):
I think you've seen, you mentioned social
media. I think you see thestories on LinkedIn about people
getting frustrated, not just bybeing ghosted, but by actually
getting through a process andthen not hearing back. And there
are just so many stories aboutthe entirety of the value chain
or recruiting that is justsubstantially broken. And we've
(11:32):
actually had on the program afew talent acquisition experts
who talk about, you know, howthe process has evolved and
whatnot. I think one of thetenets of the process, though,
is you have a supply of people,and you have a demand for
talent. And the supply of peoplehas been gigantic, people not
only switching roles, but peoplewho are out of work, looking for
(11:53):
a specific role and and also youhave those internal people who
are looking for new pathways,who are frustrated because they
haven't seen growth in their intheir roles. So to me, one of
the key under underpinnings ofthe process is, I think, because
of the internet, there are a lotmore candidates. There are,
(12:17):
there's only a few roles, andtrying to stick the 150 maybe
200,000 pounds of supply intothat, you know, eight ounce bag
of of demand is, is a very, verykey challenge, the funnel.
Dwight Brown (12:35):
And you think about the in between, between
those you know, you're andthat's, that's that brokenness
is, it's like two groups sittingon opposite banks of a river
without a bridge, trying to getto each other and jump in the
water, and the water just sweepsyou away. You never make it
David Turetsky (12:54):
it's cold
Dwight Brown (12:54):
to the other side, and it's cold! Exactly,
especially where Isaac is.
Isaac Cheifetz (12:58):
I have people, yes. I mean, I'm outside
Minneapolis, and it was fivebelow yesterday. It's about 25
now, and it feels spring like.
But I remember once talking tosomebody a couple years ago, and
he told me proudly that, oh, I'mdoing a really good job on my
job search. I'm applying to jobsonline 40 hours a week. And I
(13:19):
quoted to him the late greatUCLA basketball coach John
Wooden, who used to distinguishbetween activity and
accomplishment. And I said, Isaid, it is completely useless
to apply online to jobs that youare not a great fit for. It is
(13:41):
just it is a bad use of time,because you're now competing, at
least, if you're a great fit,you're competing with some
finite number of people who area great fit. If you're a loose
fit or not a fit at all, you'renow completing with 10s of 1000s
of people who are doing the samemindless thing you are. So I'm a
much bigger advocate for I callit peer networking, for simply
(14:05):
going across your network andsaying, Hey, let's catch up for
20 minutes and not talk aboutjob search. At the very end,
say, Hey, if you know ofanything, because you'll have a
set. And if you do, you can havea handful of those a day, and
over the course of months,you'll cut you'll really stir up
your network.
David Turetsky (14:25):
I just think that people, they get to a
desperation point because theysee so many other people out of
work.
Isaac Cheifetz (14:35):
Yes!
David Turetsky (14:36):
And Isaac, I've been there too, where you get to
a point where you say, I'vetried to, I've tried my quote,
unquote best, because I'm anexpert in a field, to try and
get a role in that field. But itseems like I'm competing against
myself more than anything else,because I don't get anything
(14:56):
back, I don't get any feedback,and I get ghosted more often
than not.
Isaac Cheifetz (15:01):
I hear that from a lot of people who have
absolutely blue chipbackgrounds, and honestly it
makes them a little crazy at acertain point! And not
irrevocably, but it's, it's,
Dwight Brown (15:11):
yep it's, it's hard, yeah,
especially the last year or so,because the last two years we
was both kind of a down economy,and there was, in this era, this
notion that AI would replacesome large percent of jobs,
which, which it hasn't yet,which it hasn't. And I think, we
(15:33):
think probably, probably won't,but at least in the short to
medium term.
David Turetsky (15:38):
Right
Isaac Cheifetz (15:39):
But it really I think there's reason to think
that 25 well, that there'll be alot more hiring, just because
there was a lot that was wherecompanies were resisting hiring
in this two year period forthose reasons.
Dwight Brown (15:53):
When you think about the you think about the
impact. Number one, you have theimpact on the candidate. Number
two, you have the impact on thehiring company, but when you
look at it from the big pictureperspective, there's a big
contingent of people who areunemployed out there who have
given up on the hiring process.
They've done it for so long andbeen so discouraged that they've
(16:15):
stopped looking for a job. Andso you actually have this
broader economic impact thatgoes with this. I think a lot of
people think, well, it's aprocess problem within a
company. Well, it's, it is verymuch so. But there's a bigger
component that goes with it too.
Isaac Cheifetz (16:34):
Big time and that. I mean, that's probably,
ultimately, I mean, that's amore strategic conversation than
the one we're having here today,I think. And it's ultimately a
more important one, and it'sprobably above my pay grade,
but,
David Turetsky (16:54):
but yeah, you should apply to that role then,
Isaac!
Isaac Cheifetz (16:56):
yes
David Turetsky (16:56):
See if you can get it, and let us know.
Isaac Cheifetz (16:59):
I'll tell you.
One of the fun things about mycareer is because I've, I've
almost always been working withleading edge business. I mean,
you know, businesses, I'm, Idon't do much. I've never done
much search for technologists,for programmers or something,
but for business people, butstill, they're at the cutting
edge. So even when they'rethings are taking a little
(17:20):
longer than they'd like to.
Yeah, these people are not goingto be unemployed in the long
term, because what they're doingis so central to the future of
the economy. So that you knowwhen people, when companies I
work with, have massive layoffs,I try to help, but I the human
component of, oh, what will thisperson do next? Is just isn't
(17:43):
the same. That's a luxury I havejust because I'm at, I'm really
at the cutting edge of of wherethings are now and where they
want to be.
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David Turetsky (18:03):
So Isaac, let's transition to talk about, is
there a solution? Can we make achange to the function that
might improve the situation?
Isaac Cheifetz (18:15):
Sure. Let's talk about, how do we write job
descriptions? I was like Imentioned. I was a comp analyst
for three years, so I don'tthink I'm giving away any
secrets. I think the vastmajority of us, if we have a new
role, if we're, if we're in thejob design role, and we're and
(18:36):
we're told to create a jobdescription for role x, what's
the first thing we do, we we goonline. We go to Google. We
Google the title. We scrollseveral dozen job descriptions
that have that title. Find theones that seem well written and
closer to what we're doing. Wedownload them, we meet with the
(18:58):
hiring executive, and basicallygo through those job
descriptions, circling theelements that the hiring manager
wants in the role. We cobble ittogether, we polish it. We've
got a job, a nice jobdescription. Here's, and I used
to do this forever. Here's theproblem I realized at a certain
point, from a processstandpoint, is it from a
(19:21):
distance? It looks like a goodjob description, but it's, it's
almost like a Frankensteinmonster across the field. It
looks like
David Turetsky (19:30):
It's cobbled together
Isaac Cheifetz (19:31):
but when you get up close, there are bolts
sticking out of his forehead,because he's not actually a real
person. He's a facsimile. Andand I think it's the same thing
here. You can put together a jobdescription that reads really
fluidly for that and yet hasnothing. Anything it has to do
(19:52):
with what you're trying toaccomplish in your business is
coincidental! And that's justnot good enough, because, once
you hire that person, yeah, onceyou hire a person to that spec,
the odds that the jobdescription is incrementally
off, 10% 25% 40, whatever, arepretty good.
David Turetsky (20:18):
Well, I think there's a fundamental problem,
Isaac, with what a jobdescription really is, because
work today is mainly search forinformation. I'm being flippant,
by the way, search forinformation, cobble information
together and present informationfor a lot of us, right? And
those are our duties. Where Imean, some of us sell, some of
(20:41):
us buy resources, but, but thejob descriptions that are there
are so antiquated. They'rethey're looking at how someone
works in a very old fashionedway.
Isaac Cheifetz (20:53):
Oh, big time.
Big time. Oh, if you have a job,if you have a job that has
existed by title for decades inthe company, let's say a CFO.
Okay? you could have a CFO andthey just keep hiring against
the job same job descriptionbecause, well, a CFO is a CFO,
right? For all we know that jobdescription was written at the
end of the Korean War!
David Turetsky (21:16):
exactly, right, that's the last time the survey
was updated.
Isaac Cheifetz (21:21):
Even though, thematically, a CFO is the same
as it was back then, in thesense it's the responsible for
overseeing the metrics of thecompany and applying it
strategically. But where doesthe sophistication of those
metrics back in the day, it wasgap or equivalent? Today, today,
a CFO is half an analyticsperson. So yeah, that applies to
(21:46):
same thing for sales andmarketing. Good Lord. I mean
marketing, marketing todayversus 15 years ago, almost
unrecognizable. I mean, I knewmarketing executives in the 90s
who were dirt ignorant abouttechnology. They just they
didn't know and they didn'tcare. Had nothing to do with
(22:07):
them. Today, marketing is twothirds analytics!
David Turetsky (22:11):
Absolutely, SEO.
Dwight Brown (22:13):
digital medium.
Isaac Cheifetz (22:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
David Turetsky (22:16):
And that's what worries me, though, is that a
lot of those descriptions thatpeople use today are just
totally antiquated. They don'treally focus on the current set
of tasks, duties andresponsibilities or educational
requirements. I mean, most ofthem still say they they require
a bachelor's degree, andprobably two thirds, or 75% of
(22:39):
the people who are doing the jobdon't have a bachelor's degree,
or they do, they probably havemore and more insight not having
one than they would if theyalready, if they invested the
four years to get one.
Isaac Cheifetz (22:50):
Well, I couldn't agree more, but I'm going to
sidestep that topic just becausewe could do, no, no, that's a
rich topic, and that's verysalient to what's going on today
relative to higher ed, but thatwe'd need, we'd need hours to
talk about that one!
David Turetsky (23:07):
I got all day! And that's and that's when we
just lost all of our listenersjust right there. Sorry, I was
just kidding everybody. We willclose this out in 13 or 14
minutes, I promise.
Dwight Brown (23:22):
But it's, I mean, it's true that the job
descriptions are probably themost neglected thing. I mean, we
see it all the time in our work,when we're doing market pricing
and companies don't have up todate job descriptions. But it
makes total sense to me, Isaacthat with the process you're
talking about that would bethat's the ultimate starting
(23:43):
point.
Isaac Cheifetz (23:44):
yeah, so give me maybe three to five minutes.
I'll just do a quick dive on theprocess. Okay?
David Turetsky (23:49):
please!
Isaac Cheifetz (23:50):
So I mean when, when I say design for quality?
What is design for quality? Mostcontinuous improvement
methodologies, whether it's TQMor Six Sigma, or, you know,
whichever variant a companyuses, use the concept of design
for quality, which is that youare making hard, systemic
(24:14):
decisions at the beginning ofthe process as to what you know
based on data as to what thecustomer needs and what that
translates into in the product.
In our case here, what is thewhat is the product? Well, the
product is the design job andadjust slash, which presents as
(24:36):
a job description. Yourcustomers, I would say, are
primarily your internalcustomers, the hiring managers,
and secondarily the candidates,maybe not even secondarily. And
now you might think that this isa really complicated thing to
do. I've found it's really easyto do, and here's why. All you
(24:59):
have to do is take, you don'thave to immerse yourself and
become a quality guru. You allyou have to do is start with the
funded business case. Let'sassume this is a new role. Let's
assume this is a Director ofSales for your new for the
(25:21):
attempt of your company atmonetizing data. That's as an
example, you make robots, yougenerate data from the factory
floor. You want to anonymizethat data and then sell it to to
to customers. Well, this rolethat you're hiring for is the
(25:43):
result of a funded of a fundedbusiness initiative where
someone took the trouble towrite an extensive business case
that was approved. All you do,you start with that. You review
it. You do the classic gapanalysis, current state, future
state gap, and then and youstart flow charting. And what's
(26:07):
beautiful about this is it bothhelps you be decisive and you
show your math. So what needs tobe done in the next year to
reduce that gap or to addressit? What is this person, this
key person, need to do to reducethe gap? What experience do they
need to have to be able to dothis? And again, we're flow
(26:29):
charting, and we're not sittingaround just as a group of
stakeholders in the higher upthrowing out opinions where
we're defining. We're makingdecisions the same way we would
if we were building a callcenter and wanted the, you know,
defined answer as to what nextsteps are. And I'll give you an
(26:53):
example of where this can bereally powerful, the question
of, do we need someone fromwithin our industry or not? I
maintain that you almost neverneed someone from your industry.
What you need is someone from aindustry with the same critical
attributes as yours, andbecause, after all, think about
(27:16):
benchmarking. You benchmark BestPractices outside your industry
in order to leapfrog yourcompetitors, you don't benchmark
your competitors, and the threeelements are similar product
complexity, similar go to marketstrategy and selling at the same
level and and once you'veidentified what those quote
(27:36):
cousin industries are, now youput yourself in a position
where, instead of having dozensof candidates, you have 1000s,
and none of them have noncompetes. So that's an example
of where you can take somechances, because they're not
really chances. They're theresult of very concrete
analysis, where you're showingyour math, where someone
(27:58):
questions, why are you doingthat? You can say, well, this is
our train of logic.
David Turetsky (28:05):
Yeah, I think Isaac, though a lot of people
who are listening have just,there's a lump in their throat,
saying, wait a minute. Does thatmean that there has to be a
business plan every time I wantto hire somebody? Because the
answer is, is that almost neverdo we have a business plan that
supports the hiring. It usuallyis a requisition that got
approved, whether it was lastyear, the year before, or even
(28:26):
this year, and now they have togo out and, you know, hire for
that. Do people typically askfor that ROI?
Isaac Cheifetz (28:35):
No, your point well taken. Point, very well
taken. So let me step back fromthe Yeah, yes, there are
occasionally those, those thingsexist. I'd say the more senior
it is, the more likely itexists. Yes, if we're talking at
the C level, it exists. But atmost levels it does not, but it
(28:55):
doesn't. You can still do thiscolloquially, and you're hiring
that person for a reason, so youcan do this on the fly just as
easily, and you can just simplysit there and sit with your
internal the hiring exec andsay, walk me. Give me half an
hour. Walk me through it. Whereare you at now? What do you want
(29:17):
to be in? Where do you want tobe in 18 months? What is the
role of this person and movingyou towards this, what is it
specifically that they need toaccomplish to be successful in
enabling what you're looking todo? So you can do it
colloquially, just as easy, andit doesn't take days. It takes,
(29:38):
takes a half hour session withwith the hiring manager. And I'm
not saying it's it's not. Andthe good news is here, there's
this stuff is done on such aloosey, goosey basis, sometimes
at its worst, that you don'thave to get it perfect just by
applying, just by using theconcepts of lean, even though
(29:59):
you're not actually reducingvariance in the way
quantitatively, in the way youdo in real lean, there's so much
low hanging fruit that theresult will still be noticeably
better. Does that mitigate?
Shoot back at me on that, if youwould.
Dwight Brown (30:16):
So, when you identify this pool of candidates
we were just talking about thesupply and demand and the chasm
that sits between those how doesthis process identify those
folks? Is that out on theapplications that come in? Where
(30:37):
do you identify this pool andthen, how do you make that
connection?
Isaac Cheifetz (30:41):
I don't have a perfect answer to that, though
it's something I think about alot. I would say that I think
the trend we're going to seegoing forward is that talent
acquisition partners for them tohave still more of a positive of
a powerful impact, that it'sgoing the idea of taking people
(31:02):
from line roles or support roleswho are subject matter experts,
and putting them into talentacquisition for a couple of
years and making it in whateveryou know, in whatever way, a you
know, a high, you know,visibility role that is
considered a step up. Because, Imean, what's more important than
(31:26):
than your future, futureemployees, right? And talent
acquisition, you know, thechildren are our future. But,
yeah, the but what I'm saying soI think that that will
Dwight Brown (31:38):
We are the world!
Isaac Cheifetz (31:41):
And so I'm saying that remember, I mean,
I'm I exist as the, I'm a headhunter. Okay, so I make my
living at the ground level,putting people into roles. This
isn't an academic. Everything Ipreach are heuristics that I
learned over many, manysearches. But I think, but to
(32:03):
answer your question directly,yes, I think that the most
important thing is to get movepeople up to where. I mean,
okay. I mean, I presume peoplelike David or myself, because
we've been doing this for solong, we have the ability, if
you gave us a stack, a threeinch stack of resume, we could
(32:26):
sort through them over a glassof wine in a couple of hours and
just eyeball them and put theminto red, green, yellow piles,
even if they were a complexspec, because we've done it so
often and are knee deep in somany different disciplines, we
can do that.
Dwight Brown (32:44):
Right
Isaac Cheifetz (32:45):
Most people, it's not. It's not fair to
expect most people to be able todo that, but it's eminently
doable to have peopleincrementally get better at it,
and the better they get at it,the more they'll be a it won't,
it won't feel like it's much ofa challenge to sort through
those. Now whether will AI help,who's to say? I mean, quick
(33:08):
story, a CEO told me a couple ofmonths ago, he told me that he
had heard from another CEO thatpeople were starting to use
candidates were using AI torewrite the resume to tailor to
the spec, to the jobdescription, and the companies
were using AI to assess thoseresumes. Well, I mean, that's
(33:33):
the ultimate garbage in garbageout, right? Yeah. I mean, you're
both, it's deception at. Whatwere you going to say David?
David Turetsky (33:42):
Well, well, Isaac, I'll just, I'm just going
to disagree a little bit. One ofthe things that AI has done on
the inbound side is it'ssearching for certain things and
certain patterns. And I applaudpeople that use AI on the on the
supply side so that they canwhat's the word? It's not even
(34:05):
gaming the system. It's actuallyutilizing the system for
themselves. If they put togetherthe best resume and cover letter
possible, they're never going toget chosen because they're being
honest, and honesty is not thebest policy in this case,
because the AI is looking forthose keywords that the system
has set up against them andgaming the system would be to
(34:27):
your point, writing crap andexpecting it to win. What the AI
is doing is helping themunderstand how to write the
resume and cover letter in a wayin which the AI might be more
receptive. To me, it's more notas much gaming system, it's
using the system for yourpurpose.
Isaac Cheifetz (34:48):
Okay, but you're if I understand correct, I mean,
that makes sense to me, but if Iunderstand correctly what you're
saying, you're saying that inyour scenario, the candidate is
using AI to make to to maketheir fit more obvious.
What I wastalking about are people using
David Turetsky (35:04):
Yes AI to make it look where they're
not a beautiful fit, they'retotally
Isaac Cheifetz (35:12):
a gental fit
Dwight Brown (35:13):
Right
Isaac Cheifetz (35:13):
Yeah. So I think we're, we're, we're holding on
to parts of the same elephant Ithink.
David Turetsky (35:18):
Yeah. And I think the frauds, the frauds do
get assistance here, but thepeople who are genuine also get
assistance.
Isaac Cheifetz (35:26):
Sure. So yes, yes, yes. And again, I'm all
Yeah. Always up for learning. Idon't really understand the best
practice of filling each job sayon LinkedIn with dozens of
buzzwords, because how doesputting down business
development or leadership or anynumber of dozens and dozens of
(35:47):
key buzzwords that's that's notenough, given the current state
of tech, it's just so brittle.
Now I don't think there'sinformation there.
Dwight Brown (35:59):
And so with the Lean hiring model, I think what
I'm hearing is we've still gotthis brokenness of getting the
supply to the to the demandhowever you're building up the
supply in a more targeted waythat really gets to what the
(36:19):
needs of the job are, and whatthe key responsibilities are,
and the skills that arenecessary for that job. It's
really about that targetingpiece of things.
Isaac Cheifetz (36:29):
Yes, and I left this out, I didn't intend to
talk about this a lot of thispresentation in the interest of
time, because normally when Ideliver this as a presentation
to HR groups at companies, itbasically takes half a day to
cover the several modules. Butanother powerful element of this
is it makes it easier forcandidates to see when a job is
(36:51):
a great fit for them, becauseyou're delineating so much more
tightly how the role fits intothe business and B it likely
reduces their frustration levelwith the company transactionally
because of that clarity. Sothat's really well, I guess what
I'm saying is there's nothingelse in civilized society that
(37:14):
is still done from a processoptimization standpoint. I mean,
no one would ever build a callcenter or a technology stack or
a house with this kind of casualattitude towards process? Yeah,
and I want to know buddy, who'sa pretty fellow, you know,
(37:36):
Dwight of a former employer. Heguy who who's a good buddy, and
I was what described this thingyears ago. And he said, Well,
yeah, it's, it makes sense. Butthe truth is, I like to have a
job 85% described. And then Igo, I'll start interviewing. And
I use those conversations to pindown, yeah, I learned things,
(37:57):
and I add things to it. I said,Well, I said, that's cool. I
said, Tell me this, would youbuild a new house that way?
Right? And the answer, obviouslyis no, because if you said that
to your PC, the GC would say,No, I won't do that, because
some idiot with money tried itthree years ago and his house
cost 2x and he wasn't happy. Sono, I made a tie down spec with
(38:20):
a bow around it. And, you know,so that I'm suggesting that that
doing that A will, by itsnature, lead to a smoother,
faster, hire and and that,number two, it also, I think,
gives the talent acquisitionperson a real foundation on
(38:45):
which to push back againsthiring execs who have, not who
have, because a lot, let's,let's be honest, a lot, if not
most, of the undisciplined ideasabout what ought to be in the
job come from the hiringmanager, not from the HR person
and if and but in you know me asan external recruiter, it's part
(39:09):
of my job to, in confidence,tell the executive No, that dog
won't hunt. Be a lot differentif I was on salary to that
company. And this is a what?
This is a tool, if with onegrounds oneself in it, to be
able to say, hey, this isn't myopinion. I'm applying just like
you do in many areas,operationally the company I'm
(39:29):
applying, I'm applying designfor quality principles, ala lean
and based on that, we need toanswer these questions now, not
later.
David Turetsky (39:40):
Hey, are you listening to this and thinking
to yourself, Man, I wish I couldtalk to David about this. Well,
you're in luck. We have aspecial offer for listeners of
the HR Data Labs podcast, a freehalf hour call with me about any
of the topics we cover on thepodcast or whatever is on your
mind. Go tosalary.com/hrdlconsulting to
(40:04):
schedule your free 30 minutecall today.
Well, but Isaac, how doessomeone let's, let's kind of
start this last question in avery straightforward way.
Isaac Cheifetz (40:15):
Sure
David Turetsky (40:16):
What does someone do in talent acquisition
to adopt these principles? Dothey have to become certified in
like six sigma or leanprinciples in order to be able
to utilize those in within theirrole?
Isaac Cheifetz (40:30):
That No, no, that would well, I'll tell the
short answer is no, though Iwould say that if they did,
that's probably a heck of acompetitive advantage for their
career. It is not necessary, butif they did it, I think they'd
be distinguishing themselves bigtime in terms of the kind of
(40:51):
roles that will be available tothem going forward. But no,
they, I mean, I mean, I'mactually, I'm actually working
on a, on a, on a handbook rightnow that would be basically
paint by numbers for this, sothat you wouldn't need to know
everything about it.
David Turetsky (41:08):
So we'll put the, if there's a link
Dwight Brown (41:10):
Cliff notes?
available, we'll put that in theshow notes, so someone who's
listening to us could say, okay,so how do I act on this? And if
there's a crib, crib sheetversion, or a or what do they
call the the
David Turetsky (41:23):
Yes, if there's a short
Isaac Cheifetz (41:25):
David, don't act like you don't know what Cliff
Notes are.
David Turetsky (41:28):
Yeah, Cliff Notes. I no, I've never used
those in college. I mean,anytime I don't know what they
are. No, but, but we can putanswer the link to that. We will
show notes. All right, perfect.
(41:51):
So Isaac, any other salientpieces on this that you think
are critical before we close?
Isaac Cheifetz (41:58):
said, Oh, that's a fascinating tangent that we
don't want to go off on. Sothere, there are lots of
emanations to it. But more thananything else, I think I would
say that, okay, here's one. Iwould say that historically,
when technology enables realefficiencies, has real ROI,
David Turetsky (42:24):
Yeah
Isaac Cheifetz (42:24):
it's pretty obvious, and there's a lot of
low hanging fruit. So anytimesomeone comes to you and says, I
have magic beans or magic Gen AIthat will fix this problem, the
odds are you're probably reallybetter off focusing on
optimizing your processes reallytightly, and then once you
(42:48):
really understand yourprocesses, looking for modules
of them that can be automated.
But anyone that tells you thatthey can automate the soup to
nuts what you're doing, runaway.
David Turetsky (43:01):
So there are going to be a lot of people
running and screaming then afterthis podcast, which you know,
it's okay, especially if you arerunning and listening to us as
you run, just run a littlefaster. They will not catch up
to you. Isaac, I think we'regoing to have to ask you to come
back and we can spend another atleast day or two talking about
this topic because it's afascinating one for Dwight and
(43:22):
I.
Isaac Cheifetz (43:22):
Anytime my brothers.
David Turetsky (43:24):
Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much for beinghere!
Isaac Cheifetz (43:26):
My pleasure. I really enjoyed it!
David Turetsky (43:28):
Dwight, thank you.
Dwight Brown (43:29):
Thank you. Thanks for being with us today, Isaac.
Definitely a lot more that wecan delve into!
David Turetsky (43:34):
Absolutely and thank you all for listening.
Take care and stay safe.
Announcer (43:39):
That was the HR Data Labs podcast, if you liked the
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like to hear it, please send ittheir way. Thank you for joining
us this week, and stay tuned forour next episode. Stay safe.
Announcer, the world of business is more complex than
(00:03):
ever. The world of humanresources and compensation is
also getting more complex.
Welcome to the HR Data Labspodcast, your direct source for
the latest trends from expertsinside and outside the world of
human resources. Listen as weexplore the impact that
compensation strategy, data andpeople analytics can have on
your organization. This podcastis sponsored by Salary.com, our
(00:26):
source for data technology andconsulting for compensation and
beyond. Now here are your hosts,David cheretsky and Dwight
Brown.
David Turetsky (00:38):
Hello and welcome to the HR Data Labs
podcast. I'm your host. DavidTuretsky, alongside my co-host,
best friend and partner, whojumps off of ridges, Dwight
Brown. Ridges, not bridges.
Dwight Brown (00:50):
I was gonna say, I don't jump off bridges.
David Turetsky (00:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all, but by the way, from
Salary.com so
Dwight Brown (00:58):
From Salary.com! Yes, yeah, but it's not
Salary.com sponsored jumping.
David Turetsky (01:04):
No! Thank goodness, although
Isaac Cheifetz (01:05):
You're life insurance coverage, I assume.
Dwight Brown (01:07):
Right, exactly.
David Turetsky (01:09):
And you heard the voice of Isaac Cheifetz.
Isaac, how are you?
Isaac Cheifetz (01:14):
I'm very well.
It's great to see you two again!
David Turetsky (01:16):
And it's great to have you on! Isaac, tell us a
little bit about you.
Isaac Cheifetz (01:20):
Well, I, like you, I'm New York, born and
bred. I spent, let's see,undergrad in history, which I
didn't know what to do with,masters in organizational psych,
which I didn't know what to dowith. Worked in as a comp
(01:41):
analyst for three years, while Iwas figuring it out. This is all
back in New York, jumped to asearch firm in the very late 80s
that did nothing but AI, if youcould believe it. So was
immersed in that world backthen.
David Turetsky (01:55):
In 1980 there was AI?
Isaac Cheifetz (01:57):
It is very mid 80s.
Dwight Brown (01:59):
Everyone thinks it's new!
David Turetsky (02:00):
Oh, so new!
Isaac Cheifetz (02:01):
No, I was placing ML researchers and list
programmers, and in that erawhen most people weren't on the
internet yet! Iremember, we wereon the internet, we were on the
internet, but the web did notexist yet. So we would get
resumes from people at Oracle orSun, but we would have to FTP
them.
David Turetsky (02:22):
Oh, sure, lovely.
Isaac Cheifetz (02:24):
And I came out to move to Minneapolis after a
summer back country in Alaska,and have been here ever since.
My career has really been I'vebeen an executive recruiter two
thirds, three quarters of mycareer. The other third, various
kinds of consulting, mostlytalent acquisition,
(02:46):
organizational design, operatingmodels, strategy. I'm not a
technologist, but I know moreabout data than your average
bear. And even though smartbears that can catch the salmon,
you know, I saw those in Alaska.
And these days, I basically dotwo things. I do retained
(03:09):
executive search, particularlyfor roles that are evolving new
roles where companies want tohire someone with classic blue
chip business experience, butwho are also sophisticated about
the new technologies, not astechnologists, but rather in
terms of how to monetize thespend on whether it's AI or
(03:30):
digital etc, etc.
David Turetsky (03:36):
That's a novel concept. Isaac actually having
to have an ROI for it?
Isaac Cheifetz (03:40):
Well, I guess, well, I mean, this stuff
interests me, and I won't. It'sthe I was always very interested
in that topic going way back.
It's a distraction from whatwe're talking about today, but
it's interesting. And the otherthing I do these days is I have
an offering called hiring as aservice, where I basically embed
(04:01):
myself in companies on a longterm basis for you know, to be
available as needed, to helpthem turbo charge the quality,
basically, to hire peoplebetter, faster and stay longer
and, and the model we'll talkabout today is a piece of that
(04:23):
puzzle.
David Turetsky (04:26):
So you're the $6 million recruiter faster.
Isaac Cheifetz (04:29):
I'm more Oscar, I'm more Oscar Goldman, but I'll
take it.
Dwight Brown (04:36):
And there's, there's a certain portion of our
audience is going, hm?
Isaac Cheifetz (04:39):
They have no idea Johnny Carson was, there's
no way you know Oscar Goldman.
Yes, Oscar Goldman was The $6million man's boss.
David Turetsky (04:50):
Yes, he was. He was a great straight man to all
the jokes. So Isaac, what's onefun thing that no one knows
about you?
Isaac Cheifetz (04:59):
Well. My friends know it, because I can't resist
telling the story. But thesummer after Alaska, I was solo
hiking in the Montana Rockies,and I saw it was in the it was
in the late spring, and I saw abear on a ridge over me, and I
wasn't really afraid a grizzlybear. And I wasn't really afraid
(05:19):
because I'd seen lots of bearsin Alaska, I knew how to deal
with it, and one of the thingsyou're supposed to do is just
walk along and make a lot ofnoise so you don't surprise
them. So I'm walking alongsaying, Hey Bear, Hey bear, and
suddenly in front and I'mwalking up a steep incline with
probably a 50 pound pack on myback, and suddenly there's a
(05:40):
young bull moose standing rightin front of me. Yeah, looking
Dumb, dumb as can be. Oh, andyou know, he wasn't a giant. He
was a six foot moose, not aseven foot moose, but you know
it was big enough. And I, I'vebeen walking along by myself.
I'm a little spaced out. Justgo, Hey Bear. Hey Bear. So I
look at the moose, and theysaid, hey moose. And they just
(06:01):
stared at me, and I so I thoughtI had to up the ante, so I sort
of did my best rocky imitation,and I said, Yo, Moose! He
charged me because, I guess thatsounded pretty impressive. And
he charged me from 10 yardsaway. And he was so fast! And
so, you know, they look likethey're on stilts. They're so
nimble, especially on inclines,he was on top of me in three
(06:24):
seconds. Fortunately, I wasstanding next to a big tree, so
I just took one step behind thetree. He flashed by me down the
hill. I could have patted him onthe head. I didn't. And he goes
about 100 feet down the hill,and I'm standing with adrenaline
shooting out my ears, and Idon't know what to do, because I
(06:46):
know if I keep going up and hecomes after me, he'll be on me
again in seconds. But he's justchewing on shrubbery, and every
every few seconds he he lazily,sort of does the 180 with his
head like Linda, another ancientreference, Linda Blair and the
exorcist. I realized he doesn'tcare anymore. He made his point.
(07:07):
He got rid of the testosteronein his head, and I kept hiking,
and I felt really safe for therest of the trip, because I felt
statistically, the odds of beingattacked by both a moose and a
bear on the same trip werereally low. So that gave me some
hope. Well, when I got home andtold friends about it, I got a
lot of grief for you know,inciting a moose to attack!
David Turetsky (07:29):
Inciting a moose! Did you get a ticket for
inciting a moose?
Isaac Cheifetz (07:33):
No, no, no.
There were no gang peoplearound. I got away with it.
Dwight Brown (07:38):
I mean, it's not like you went up and kicked it
or anything!
David Turetsky (07:40):
Right. Nor did you, nor did you
Isaac Cheifetz (07:42):
Listen, that's for the courts to decide,
Dwight. No, I didn't.
David Turetsky (07:47):
A jury of my peers will find me innocent, I
swear.
Dwight Brown (07:50):
Yeah, what's that phrase? Don't poke the skunk,
yeah?
David Turetsky (07:56):
Don't poke the bear
Isaac Cheifetz (07:58):
Don't, don't pretend you're Rocky when
talking to a moose, yeah.
Dwight Brown (08:02):
I'm just picturing you walking down this trail
going, Hey, Bear. Hey, bear, Yomoose!
David Turetsky (08:09):
The bear looks at you and is like, I'm sorry
what genre are we in now? Whatare we trying to do? I'm getting
in the head of the bear, tryingto say, and the bear is a
director saying, What are youdoing, Isaac? Isaac, I want one
scene here. One scene! Give meone character.
Isaac Cheifetz (08:27):
David. I can't lie to you. I respect you too
much. It wouldn't make the top20 list of stupid things I've
done in my life. So I think weshould turn it aside and move
forward.
David Turetsky (08:37):
Okay, all right.
Well, that is, that is one ofthe more unique, one fun things
that we've heard in a long time.
Dwight Brown (08:43):
Yes, it is, it's so, I think you're up there for
the nomination for the the Oscaron that one. So
David Turetsky (08:53):
You get a slow clap for me. That was good. And
transitioning now to talk aboutour topic, and our topic is
going to be fascinating, whichis applying lean methodology to
talent acquisition.
(09:14):
And so question Isaac, what'swrong with talent acquisition?
Is it really broken?
Isaac Cheifetz (09:21):
I hear from a lot of people, I would say that
if I think about the threeconstituencies, maybe three or
four. I mean, who are theconstituencies for talent
acquisition? You they're thehiring managers, they're the
jobs they're the job seekers,they're the CEOs. And there's HR
(09:43):
there the talent acquisitionfolks in HR that. I mean, maybe
there are others, I don't know.
I guess legal comes in if you dosomething really awful, but
probably not. And, and, yeah, Ihear from lots of folks that
that they're just frustratedwith, each one in their own way!
The candidates are frustratedwhen they apply over and over
(10:03):
online for jobs that they'reperfect for and don't hear back.
The the folks in in HR talentacquisition are frustrated with
often having internal businessclients who don't take the
process seriously enough. TheCEOs are frustrated that this is
(10:26):
that they're just not seeing thethe consistency of quality
results that they would like tosee, that they hold other
functions up to. So, yeah, I I'mnot, I'm not saying it's
irrevocably broke. Oh, and thelast thing I'll put in there is,
I often give it talk toexecutive transition groups, and
(10:49):
I'll often say, How many of youfound your job at the executive
level through onlineapplication? And I know this
sounds crazy, I've yet to getone. Yeah, which is, which is,
which is mind blowing.
David Turetsky (11:06):
I think you've seen, you mentioned social
media. I think you see thestories on LinkedIn about people
getting frustrated, not just bybeing ghosted, but by actually
getting through a process andthen not hearing back. And there
are just so many stories aboutthe entirety of the value chain
or recruiting that is justsubstantially broken. And we've
(11:32):
actually had on the program afew talent acquisition experts
who talk about, you know, howthe process has evolved and
whatnot. I think one of thetenets of the process, though,
is you have a supply of people,and you have a demand for
talent. And the supply of peoplehas been gigantic, people not
only switching roles, but peoplewho are out of work, looking for
(11:53):
a specific role and and also youhave those internal people who
are looking for new pathways,who are frustrated because they
haven't seen growth in their intheir roles. So to me, one of
the key under underpinnings ofthe process is, I think, because
of the internet, there are a lotmore candidates. There are,
(12:17):
there's only a few roles, andtrying to stick the 150 maybe
200,000 pounds of supply intothat, you know, eight ounce bag
of of demand is, is a very, verykey challenge, the funnel.
Dwight Brown (12:35):
And you think about the in between, between
those you know, you're andthat's, that's that brokenness
is, it's like two groups sittingon opposite banks of a river
without a bridge, trying to getto each other and jump in the
water, and the water just sweepsyou away. You never make it
David Turetsky (12:54):
it's cold
Dwight Brown (12:54):
to the other side, and it's cold! Exactly,
especially where Isaac is.
Isaac Cheifetz (12:58):
I have people, yes. I mean, I'm outside
Minneapolis, and it was fivebelow yesterday. It's about 25
now, and it feels spring like.
But I remember once talking tosomebody a couple years ago, and
he told me proudly that, oh, I'mdoing a really good job on my
job search. I'm applying to jobsonline 40 hours a week. And I
(13:19):
quoted to him the late greatUCLA basketball coach John
Wooden, who used to distinguishbetween activity and
accomplishment. And I said, Isaid, it is completely useless
to apply online to jobs that youare not a great fit for. It is
(13:41):
just it is a bad use of time,because you're now competing, at
least, if you're a great fit,you're competing with some
finite number of people who area great fit. If you're a loose
fit or not a fit at all, you'renow completing with 10s of 1000s
of people who are doing the samemindless thing you are. So I'm a
much bigger advocate for I callit peer networking, for simply
(14:05):
going across your network andsaying, Hey, let's catch up for
20 minutes and not talk aboutjob search. At the very end,
say, Hey, if you know ofanything, because you'll have a
set. And if you do, you can havea handful of those a day, and
over the course of months,you'll cut you'll really stir up
your network.
David Turetsky (14:25):
I just think that people, they get to a
desperation point because theysee so many other people out of
work.
Isaac Cheifetz (14:35):
Yes!
David Turetsky (14:36):
And Isaac, I've been there too, where you get to
a point where you say, I'vetried to, I've tried my quote,
unquote best, because I'm anexpert in a field, to try and
get a role in that field. But itseems like I'm competing against
myself more than anything else,because I don't get anything
(14:56):
back, I don't get any feedback,and I get ghosted more often
than not.
Isaac Cheifetz (15:01):
I hear that from a lot of people who have
absolutely blue chipbackgrounds, and honestly it
makes them a little crazy at acertain point! And not
irrevocably, but it's, it's,
Dwight Brown (15:11):
yep it's, it's hard, yeah,
especially the last year or so,because the last two years we
was both kind of a down economy,and there was, in this era, this
notion that AI would replacesome large percent of jobs,
which, which it hasn't yet,which it hasn't. And I think, we
(15:33):
think probably, probably won't,but at least in the short to
medium term.
David Turetsky (15:38):
Right
Isaac Cheifetz (15:39):
But it really I think there's reason to think
that 25 well, that there'll be alot more hiring, just because
there was a lot that was wherecompanies were resisting hiring
in this two year period forthose reasons.
Dwight Brown (15:53):
When you think about the you think about the
impact. Number one, you have theimpact on the candidate. Number
two, you have the impact on thehiring company, but when you
look at it from the big pictureperspective, there's a big
contingent of people who areunemployed out there who have
given up on the hiring process.
They've done it for so long andbeen so discouraged that they've
(16:15):
stopped looking for a job. Andso you actually have this
broader economic impact thatgoes with this. I think a lot of
people think, well, it's aprocess problem within a
company. Well, it's, it is verymuch so. But there's a bigger
component that goes with it too.
Isaac Cheifetz (16:34):
Big time and that. I mean, that's probably,
ultimately, I mean, that's amore strategic conversation than
the one we're having here today,I think. And it's ultimately a
more important one, and it'sprobably above my pay grade,
but,
David Turetsky (16:54):
but yeah, you should apply to that role then,
Isaac!
Isaac Cheifetz (16:56):
yes
David Turetsky (16:56):
See if you can get it, and let us know.
Isaac Cheifetz (16:59):
I'll tell you.
One of the fun things about mycareer is because I've, I've
almost always been working withleading edge business. I mean,
you know, businesses, I'm, Idon't do much. I've never done
much search for technologists,for programmers or something,
but for business people, butstill, they're at the cutting
edge. So even when they'rethings are taking a little
(17:20):
longer than they'd like to.
Yeah, these people are not goingto be unemployed in the long
term, because what they're doingis so central to the future of
the economy. So that you knowwhen people, when companies I
work with, have massive layoffs,I try to help, but I the human
component of, oh, what will thisperson do next? Is just isn't
(17:43):
the same. That's a luxury I havejust because I'm at, I'm really
at the cutting edge of of wherethings are now and where they
want to be.
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show.
David Turetsky (18:03):
So Isaac, let's transition to talk about, is
there a solution? Can we make achange to the function that
might improve the situation?
Isaac Cheifetz (18:15):
Sure. Let's talk about, how do we write job
descriptions? I was like Imentioned. I was a comp analyst
for three years, so I don'tthink I'm giving away any
secrets. I think the vastmajority of us, if we have a new
role, if we're, if we're in thejob design role, and we're and
(18:36):
we're told to create a jobdescription for role x, what's
the first thing we do, we we goonline. We go to Google. We
Google the title. We scrollseveral dozen job descriptions
that have that title. Find theones that seem well written and
closer to what we're doing. Wedownload them, we meet with the
(18:58):
hiring executive, and basicallygo through those job
descriptions, circling theelements that the hiring manager
wants in the role. We cobble ittogether, we polish it. We've
got a job, a nice jobdescription. Here's, and I used
to do this forever. Here's theproblem I realized at a certain
point, from a processstandpoint, is it from a
(19:21):
distance? It looks like a goodjob description, but it's, it's
almost like a Frankensteinmonster across the field. It
looks like
David Turetsky (19:30):
It's cobbled together
Isaac Cheifetz (19:31):
but when you get up close, there are bolts
sticking out of his forehead,because he's not actually a real
person. He's a facsimile. Andand I think it's the same thing
here. You can put together a jobdescription that reads really
fluidly for that and yet hasnothing. Anything it has to do
(19:52):
with what you're trying toaccomplish in your business is
coincidental! And that's justnot good enough, because, once
you hire that person, yeah, onceyou hire a person to that spec,
the odds that the jobdescription is incrementally
off, 10% 25% 40, whatever, arepretty good.
David Turetsky (20:18):
Well, I think there's a fundamental problem,
Isaac, with what a jobdescription really is, because
work today is mainly search forinformation. I'm being flippant,
by the way, search forinformation, cobble information
together and present informationfor a lot of us, right? And
those are our duties. Where Imean, some of us sell, some of
(20:41):
us buy resources, but, but thejob descriptions that are there
are so antiquated. They'rethey're looking at how someone
works in a very old fashionedway.
Isaac Cheifetz (20:53):
Oh, big time.
Big time. Oh, if you have a job,if you have a job that has
existed by title for decades inthe company, let's say a CFO.
Okay? you could have a CFO andthey just keep hiring against
the job same job descriptionbecause, well, a CFO is a CFO,
right? For all we know that jobdescription was written at the
end of the Korean War!
David Turetsky (21:16):
exactly, right, that's the last time the survey
was updated.
Isaac Cheifetz (21:21):
Even though, thematically, a CFO is the same
as it was back then, in thesense it's the responsible for
overseeing the metrics of thecompany and applying it
strategically. But where doesthe sophistication of those
metrics back in the day, it wasgap or equivalent? Today, today,
a CFO is half an analyticsperson. So yeah, that applies to
(21:46):
same thing for sales andmarketing. Good Lord. I mean
marketing, marketing todayversus 15 years ago, almost
unrecognizable. I mean, I knewmarketing executives in the 90s
who were dirt ignorant abouttechnology. They just they
didn't know and they didn'tcare. Had nothing to do with
(22:07):
them. Today, marketing is twothirds analytics!
David Turetsky (22:11):
Absolutely, SEO.
Dwight Brown (22:13):
digital medium.
Isaac Cheifetz (22:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
David Turetsky (22:16):
And that's what worries me, though, is that a
lot of those descriptions thatpeople use today are just
totally antiquated. They don'treally focus on the current set
of tasks, duties andresponsibilities or educational
requirements. I mean, most ofthem still say they they require
a bachelor's degree, andprobably two thirds, or 75% of
(22:39):
the people who are doing the jobdon't have a bachelor's degree,
or they do, they probably havemore and more insight not having
one than they would if theyalready, if they invested the
four years to get one.
Isaac Cheifetz (22:50):
Well, I couldn't agree more, but I'm going to
sidestep that topic just becausewe could do, no, no, that's a
rich topic, and that's verysalient to what's going on today
relative to higher ed, but thatwe'd need, we'd need hours to
talk about that one!
David Turetsky (23:07):
I got all day! And that's and that's when we
just lost all of our listenersjust right there. Sorry, I was
just kidding everybody. We willclose this out in 13 or 14
minutes, I promise.
Dwight Brown (23:22):
But it's, I mean, it's true that the job
descriptions are probably themost neglected thing. I mean, we
see it all the time in our work,when we're doing market pricing
and companies don't have up todate job descriptions. But it
makes total sense to me, Isaacthat with the process you're
talking about that would bethat's the ultimate starting
(23:43):
point.
Isaac Cheifetz (23:44):
yeah, so give me maybe three to five minutes.
I'll just do a quick dive on theprocess. Okay?
David Turetsky (23:49):
please!
Isaac Cheifetz (23:50):
So I mean when, when I say design for quality?
What is design for quality? Mostcontinuous improvement
methodologies, whether it's TQMor Six Sigma, or, you know,
whichever variant a companyuses, use the concept of design
for quality, which is that youare making hard, systemic
(24:14):
decisions at the beginning ofthe process as to what you know
based on data as to what thecustomer needs and what that
translates into in the product.
In our case here, what is thewhat is the product? Well, the
product is the design job andadjust slash, which presents as
(24:36):
a job description. Yourcustomers, I would say, are
primarily your internalcustomers, the hiring managers,
and secondarily the candidates,maybe not even secondarily. And
now you might think that this isa really complicated thing to
do. I've found it's really easyto do, and here's why. All you
(24:59):
have to do is take, you don'thave to immerse yourself and
become a quality guru. You allyou have to do is start with the
funded business case. Let'sassume this is a new role. Let's
assume this is a Director ofSales for your new for the
(25:21):
attempt of your company atmonetizing data. That's as an
example, you make robots, yougenerate data from the factory
floor. You want to anonymizethat data and then sell it to to
to customers. Well, this rolethat you're hiring for is the
(25:43):
result of a funded of a fundedbusiness initiative where
someone took the trouble towrite an extensive business case
that was approved. All you do,you start with that. You review
it. You do the classic gapanalysis, current state, future
state gap, and then and youstart flow charting. And what's
(26:07):
beautiful about this is it bothhelps you be decisive and you
show your math. So what needs tobe done in the next year to
reduce that gap or to addressit? What is this person, this
key person, need to do to reducethe gap? What experience do they
need to have to be able to dothis? And again, we're flow
(26:29):
charting, and we're not sittingaround just as a group of
stakeholders in the higher upthrowing out opinions where
we're defining. We're makingdecisions the same way we would
if we were building a callcenter and wanted the, you know,
defined answer as to what nextsteps are. And I'll give you an
(26:53):
example of where this can bereally powerful, the question
of, do we need someone fromwithin our industry or not? I
maintain that you almost neverneed someone from your industry.
What you need is someone from aindustry with the same critical
attributes as yours, andbecause, after all, think about
(27:16):
benchmarking. You benchmark BestPractices outside your industry
in order to leapfrog yourcompetitors, you don't benchmark
your competitors, and the threeelements are similar product
complexity, similar go to marketstrategy and selling at the same
level and and once you'veidentified what those quote
(27:36):
cousin industries are, now youput yourself in a position
where, instead of having dozensof candidates, you have 1000s,
and none of them have noncompetes. So that's an example
of where you can take somechances, because they're not
really chances. They're theresult of very concrete
analysis, where you're showingyour math, where someone
(27:58):
questions, why are you doingthat? You can say, well, this is
our train of logic.
David Turetsky (28:05):
Yeah, I think Isaac, though a lot of people
who are listening have just,there's a lump in their throat,
saying, wait a minute. Does thatmean that there has to be a
business plan every time I wantto hire somebody? Because the
answer is, is that almost neverdo we have a business plan that
supports the hiring. It usuallyis a requisition that got
approved, whether it was lastyear, the year before, or even
(28:26):
this year, and now they have togo out and, you know, hire for
that. Do people typically askfor that ROI?
Isaac Cheifetz (28:35):
No, your point well taken. Point, very well
taken. So let me step back fromthe Yeah, yes, there are
occasionally those, those thingsexist. I'd say the more senior
it is, the more likely itexists. Yes, if we're talking at
the C level, it exists. But atmost levels it does not, but it
(28:55):
doesn't. You can still do thiscolloquially, and you're hiring
that person for a reason, so youcan do this on the fly just as
easily, and you can just simplysit there and sit with your
internal the hiring exec andsay, walk me. Give me half an
hour. Walk me through it. Whereare you at now? What do you want
(29:17):
to be in? Where do you want tobe in 18 months? What is the
role of this person and movingyou towards this, what is it
specifically that they need toaccomplish to be successful in
enabling what you're looking todo? So you can do it
colloquially, just as easy, andit doesn't take days. It takes,
(29:38):
takes a half hour session withwith the hiring manager. And I'm
not saying it's it's not. Andthe good news is here, there's
this stuff is done on such aloosey, goosey basis, sometimes
at its worst, that you don'thave to get it perfect just by
applying, just by using theconcepts of lean, even though
(29:59):
you're not actually reducingvariance in the way
quantitatively, in the way youdo in real lean, there's so much
low hanging fruit that theresult will still be noticeably
better. Does that mitigate?
Shoot back at me on that, if youwould.
Dwight Brown (30:16):
So, when you identify this pool of candidates
we were just talking about thesupply and demand and the chasm
that sits between those how doesthis process identify those
folks? Is that out on theapplications that come in? Where
(30:37):
do you identify this pool andthen, how do you make that
connection?
Isaac Cheifetz (30:41):
I don't have a perfect answer to that, though
it's something I think about alot. I would say that I think
the trend we're going to seegoing forward is that talent
acquisition partners for them tohave still more of a positive of
a powerful impact, that it'sgoing the idea of taking people
(31:02):
from line roles or support roleswho are subject matter experts,
and putting them into talentacquisition for a couple of
years and making it in whateveryou know, in whatever way, a you
know, a high, you know,visibility role that is
considered a step up. Because, Imean, what's more important than
(31:26):
than your future, futureemployees, right? And talent
acquisition, you know, thechildren are our future. But,
yeah, the but what I'm saying soI think that that will
Dwight Brown (31:38):
We are the world!
Isaac Cheifetz (31:41):
And so I'm saying that remember, I mean,
I'm I exist as the, I'm a headhunter. Okay, so I make my
living at the ground level,putting people into roles. This
isn't an academic. Everything Ipreach are heuristics that I
learned over many, manysearches. But I think, but to
(32:03):
answer your question directly,yes, I think that the most
important thing is to get movepeople up to where. I mean,
okay. I mean, I presume peoplelike David or myself, because
we've been doing this for solong, we have the ability, if
you gave us a stack, a threeinch stack of resume, we could
(32:26):
sort through them over a glassof wine in a couple of hours and
just eyeball them and put theminto red, green, yellow piles,
even if they were a complexspec, because we've done it so
often and are knee deep in somany different disciplines, we
can do that.
Dwight Brown (32:44):
Right
Isaac Cheifetz (32:45):
Most people, it's not. It's not fair to
expect most people to be able todo that, but it's eminently
doable to have peopleincrementally get better at it,
and the better they get at it,the more they'll be a it won't,
it won't feel like it's much ofa challenge to sort through
those. Now whether will AI help,who's to say? I mean, quick
(33:08):
story, a CEO told me a couple ofmonths ago, he told me that he
had heard from another CEO thatpeople were starting to use
candidates were using AI torewrite the resume to tailor to
the spec, to the jobdescription, and the companies
were using AI to assess thoseresumes. Well, I mean, that's
(33:33):
the ultimate garbage in garbageout, right? Yeah. I mean, you're
both, it's deception at. Whatwere you going to say David?
David Turetsky (33:42):
Well, well, Isaac, I'll just, I'm just going
to disagree a little bit. One ofthe things that AI has done on
the inbound side is it'ssearching for certain things and
certain patterns. And I applaudpeople that use AI on the on the
supply side so that they canwhat's the word? It's not even
(34:05):
gaming the system. It's actuallyutilizing the system for
themselves. If they put togetherthe best resume and cover letter
possible, they're never going toget chosen because they're being
honest, and honesty is not thebest policy in this case,
because the AI is looking forthose keywords that the system
has set up against them andgaming the system would be to
(34:27):
your point, writing crap andexpecting it to win. What the AI
is doing is helping themunderstand how to write the
resume and cover letter in a wayin which the AI might be more
receptive. To me, it's more notas much gaming system, it's
using the system for yourpurpose.
Isaac Cheifetz (34:48):
Okay, but you're if I understand correct, I mean,
that makes sense to me, but if Iunderstand correctly what you're
saying, you're saying that inyour scenario, the candidate is
using AI to make to to maketheir fit more obvious.
What I wastalking about are people using
David Turetsky (35:04):
Yes AI to make it look where they're
not a beautiful fit, they'retotally
Isaac Cheifetz (35:12):
a gental fit
Dwight Brown (35:13):
Right
Isaac Cheifetz (35:13):
Yeah. So I think we're, we're, we're holding on
to parts of the same elephant Ithink.
David Turetsky (35:18):
Yeah. And I think the frauds, the frauds do
get assistance here, but thepeople who are genuine also get
assistance.
Isaac Cheifetz (35:26):
Sure. So yes, yes, yes. And again, I'm all
Yeah. Always up for learning. Idon't really understand the best
practice of filling each job sayon LinkedIn with dozens of
buzzwords, because how doesputting down business
development or leadership or anynumber of dozens and dozens of
(35:47):
key buzzwords that's that's notenough, given the current state
of tech, it's just so brittle.
Now I don't think there'sinformation there.
Dwight Brown (35:59):
And so with the Lean hiring model, I think what
I'm hearing is we've still gotthis brokenness of getting the
supply to the to the demandhowever you're building up the
supply in a more targeted waythat really gets to what the
(36:19):
needs of the job are, and whatthe key responsibilities are,
and the skills that arenecessary for that job. It's
really about that targetingpiece of things.
Isaac Cheifetz (36:29):
Yes, and I left this out, I didn't intend to
talk about this a lot of thispresentation in the interest of
time, because normally when Ideliver this as a presentation
to HR groups at companies, itbasically takes half a day to
cover the several modules. Butanother powerful element of this
is it makes it easier forcandidates to see when a job is
(36:51):
a great fit for them, becauseyou're delineating so much more
tightly how the role fits intothe business and B it likely
reduces their frustration levelwith the company transactionally
because of that clarity. Sothat's really well, I guess what
I'm saying is there's nothingelse in civilized society that
(37:14):
is still done from a processoptimization standpoint. I mean,
no one would ever build a callcenter or a technology stack or
a house with this kind of casualattitude towards process? Yeah,
and I want to know buddy, who'sa pretty fellow, you know,
(37:36):
Dwight of a former employer. Heguy who who's a good buddy, and
I was what described this thingyears ago. And he said, Well,
yeah, it's, it makes sense. Butthe truth is, I like to have a
job 85% described. And then Igo, I'll start interviewing. And
I use those conversations to pindown, yeah, I learned things,
(37:57):
and I add things to it. I said,Well, I said, that's cool. I
said, Tell me this, would youbuild a new house that way?
Right? And the answer, obviouslyis no, because if you said that
to your PC, the GC would say,No, I won't do that, because
some idiot with money tried itthree years ago and his house
cost 2x and he wasn't happy. Sono, I made a tie down spec with
(38:20):
a bow around it. And, you know,so that I'm suggesting that that
doing that A will, by itsnature, lead to a smoother,
faster, hire and and that,number two, it also, I think,
gives the talent acquisitionperson a real foundation on
(38:45):
which to push back againsthiring execs who have, not who
have, because a lot, let's,let's be honest, a lot, if not
most, of the undisciplined ideasabout what ought to be in the
job come from the hiringmanager, not from the HR person
and if and but in you know me asan external recruiter, it's part
(39:09):
of my job to, in confidence,tell the executive No, that dog
won't hunt. Be a lot differentif I was on salary to that
company. And this is a what?
This is a tool, if with onegrounds oneself in it, to be
able to say, hey, this isn't myopinion. I'm applying just like
you do in many areas,operationally the company I'm
(39:29):
applying, I'm applying designfor quality principles, ala lean
and based on that, we need toanswer these questions now, not
later.
David Turetsky (39:40):
Hey, are you listening to this and thinking
to yourself, Man, I wish I couldtalk to David about this. Well,
you're in luck. We have aspecial offer for listeners of
the HR Data Labs podcast, a freehalf hour call with me about any
of the topics we cover on thepodcast or whatever is on your
mind. Go tosalary.com/hrdlconsulting to
(40:04):
schedule your free 30 minutecall today.
Well, but Isaac, how doessomeone let's, let's kind of
start this last question in avery straightforward way.
Isaac Cheifetz (40:15):
Sure
David Turetsky (40:16):
What does someone do in talent acquisition
to adopt these principles? Dothey have to become certified in
like six sigma or leanprinciples in order to be able
to utilize those in within theirrole?
Isaac Cheifetz (40:30):
That No, no, that would well, I'll tell the
short answer is no, though Iwould say that if they did,
that's probably a heck of acompetitive advantage for their
career. It is not necessary, butif they did it, I think they'd
be distinguishing themselves bigtime in terms of the kind of
(40:51):
roles that will be available tothem going forward. But no,
they, I mean, I mean, I'mactually, I'm actually working
on a, on a, on a handbook rightnow that would be basically
paint by numbers for this, sothat you wouldn't need to know
everything about it.
David Turetsky (41:08):
So we'll put the, if there's a link
Dwight Brown (41:10):
Cliff notes?
available, we'll put that in theshow notes, so someone who's
listening to us could say, okay,so how do I act on this? And if
there's a crib, crib sheetversion, or a or what do they
call the the
David Turetsky (41:23):
Yes, if there's a short
Isaac Cheifetz (41:25):
David, don't act like you don't know what Cliff
Notes are.
David Turetsky (41:28):
Yeah, Cliff Notes. I no, I've never used
those in college. I mean,anytime I don't know what they
are. No, but, but we can putanswer the link to that. We will
show notes. All right, perfect.
(41:51):
So Isaac, any other salientpieces on this that you think
are critical before we close?
Isaac Cheifetz (41:58):
said, Oh, that's a fascinating tangent that we
don't want to go off on. Sothere, there are lots of
emanations to it. But more thananything else, I think I would
say that, okay, here's one. Iwould say that historically,
when technology enables realefficiencies, has real ROI,
David Turetsky (42:24):
Yeah
Isaac Cheifetz (42:24):
it's pretty obvious, and there's a lot of
low hanging fruit. So anytimesomeone comes to you and says, I
have magic beans or magic Gen AIthat will fix this problem, the
odds are you're probably reallybetter off focusing on
optimizing your processes reallytightly, and then once you
(42:48):
really understand yourprocesses, looking for modules
of them that can be automated.
But anyone that tells you thatthey can automate the soup to
nuts what you're doing, runaway.
David Turetsky (43:01):
So there are going to be a lot of people
running and screaming then afterthis podcast, which you know,
it's okay, especially if you arerunning and listening to us as
you run, just run a littlefaster. They will not catch up
to you. Isaac, I think we'regoing to have to ask you to come
back and we can spend another atleast day or two talking about
this topic because it's afascinating one for Dwight and
(43:22):
I.
Isaac Cheifetz (43:22):
Anytime my brothers.
David Turetsky (43:24):
Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much for beinghere!
Isaac Cheifetz (43:26):
My pleasure. I really enjoyed it!
David Turetsky (43:28):
Dwight, thank you.
Dwight Brown (43:29):
Thank you. Thanks for being with us today, Isaac.
Definitely a lot more that wecan delve into!
David Turetsky (43:34):
Absolutely and thank you all for listening.
Take care and stay safe.
Announcer (43:39):
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