Devyn Mikell [00:00:03]:

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Hey, this is Devyn Mikell with the Higher Quality podcast. Super excited to be interviewing you. So could you introduce yourself? Your role in the company that you work at?

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Erin Wilson [00:00:13]:

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Hey, everyone, this is Aaron Wilson. I am co founder and CEO of Team AI. We are a recruiting technology company based out of San Francisco, impacting lives globally.

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Devyn Mikell [00:00:24]:

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What is top of mind for you as a talent leader at your organization?

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Erin Wilson [00:00:28]:

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Top of mind is getting into unique, authentic, meaningful conversations about recruiting. Too many of the conversations I hear today are absolute repetitive, broken records. And the result of those conversations drives no new value in our space.

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Devyn Mikell [00:00:48]:

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What is something you wish you knew about leading talent that you didn't know when you first started?

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Erin Wilson [00:00:53]:

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Whenever you join a new organization, even as a leader, always focus on driving value directly before you start working to change or influence the company. Fill a job before you try to change the entire interview process at the company, you can use that initial effort to build credibility and gather data and insights in a timely manner that can then be implemented as change going forward.

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Devyn Mikell [00:01:22]:

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What's something unique about you as a talent leader at your organization that makes you a perfect fit for that job?

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Erin Wilson [00:01:28]:

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Number one, is this an industry that you're passionate about recruiting for? That would be important. Number two is understanding the specific stage or state of the business is an early stage. Am I going to be expected to do this by myself? Will I have a small team? Is it a big company? Will I have a large team? But the size of your team and the budget and the tooling will directly impact your ability to succeed and your enjoyment on the job.

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Devyn Mikell [00:02:02]:

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We made it to the last question, and this one's a fun one. What is the worst question you've ever been asked in an interview?

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Erin Wilson [00:02:10]:

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One of them that just always stands out to me. I had a customer years ago, hiring manager was a male, and they asked the candidate directly who was a female, if they were single and ready to mingle in an intErview. It was very embarrassing to get that feedback and obviously problematic in other ways.

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Devyn Mikell [00:02:34]:

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What's up, everyone? This is Devyn Mikell, host of the Higher Quality podcast and co founder of Qualify. I am joined by another co founder, Aaron Wilson, co founder and CEO of Team AI. You just heard him on the qualify interview in the beginning of this episode, but now he's here joining me for a Hire Quality conversation. Aaron, thanks so much for being here. Super excited to chat.

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Erin Wilson [00:02:58]:

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Hey, thanks for having me, Dan.

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Devyn Mikell [00:02:59]:

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Absolutely. So I know that I don't always give the best intro. I can hit titles. I can see what's on LinkedIn, but so can everybody else. So why don't you add a little color into what they don't know about you? Your 32nd intro of yourself.

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Erin Wilson [00:03:14]:

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32Nd Intro. First thing you got to know is I'm a father of two boys, Bo and Asher. They're ten and eight. That is my number one priority. That is my favorite job. Beyond that, though, I like to think of myself as a blue collar recruiter who fell in love with technology way too long ago. The gray hair will mark me, but I love building, man. I love building teams, companies, careers.

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Erin Wilson [00:03:35]:

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I love seeing people win.

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Devyn Mikell [00:03:36]:

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At the end of the day, I love it. So I'm a father as well. New. I'm very new, almost six months now. So I definitely resonate with the change of priority. As a founder, you especially probably resonate with that piece, too. It's like there's three babies in the house for you, right? You have your company and you have your kids, but the priority is obviously set. So for those that are listening, we typically have recruiters and talent leaders listening.

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Devyn Mikell [00:04:06]:

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What do you think about when you're creating a company, having been a recruiter or a recruiting leader? What's the difference in your lens as you're going to create a company for these folks?

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Erin Wilson [00:04:19]:

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Yeah, I think my empathy has changed in a sense that I have a lot more empathy now for founders and sort of the array of business matters they need to attend to to get the business off the ground. Growing up in the industry, you'rE sort of trained, taught, and then tell everyone that recruiting is the number one priority. But as an early stage founder, that's not true, actually. And you got a lot of other things to worry about. But the other side of that coin, though, I think, is the founding team will tell you everything. And I've sort of learned that as both the recruiter and having been a founder. Now, I'm not sure I recognize that as much as a recruiter back in the day. Just knowing that, hey, your ability to succeed as a recruiting function is highly dependent on the existing executive team.

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Erin Wilson [00:05:09]:

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Got it?

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Devyn Mikell [00:05:10]:

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Okay, before I get too tactical, because I will tend to do that, I do want to backtrack. And how did we get here? Right, so everyone has a story. I say this almost every episode, I think, but I have come to believe that almost everybody in recruiting was not intending to be there. Maybe that's your story, maybe it's not. But let's talk about where we started, and let's work our way up to where we are today. So where did it begin for you in this journey of becoming a person, leading in the talent space.

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Erin Wilson [00:05:42]:

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Yeah. Coming out of college, I did not have a completed degree. That is relevant because in 2005, six, seven, if you didn't have a completed business degree, it was hard to get a job in corporate America. So long story short, I was looking for a job. Someone introduced a recruiter to me as a person that could help me find a job. And I went to a staffing firm called Apple One and met with the folks and they did set me up for interviews and I did get an offer, but I turned down the offer. And the way that the recruiter handled the turndown was not very professional. And I'll always remember that experience because that was the first time I was introduced to recruiting was actually as a candidate.

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Erin Wilson [00:06:29]:

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It was the idea that this function was really valuable. Right. But maybe the style or the way that person handled that moment wasn't awesome. But I was onto something. So from there, I started interviewing at staffing firms. Actually, Devyn, so it's funny because I agree with you, all my friends fell into recruiting. You could say I fell into recruiting, but I feel more like I found recruiting and I fell in love with it. And that's actually what's created the lifelong pursuit and the career that I've built up to now.

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Devyn Mikell [00:07:02]:

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Got you. So when you were interviewing with a staffing firm, you were interviewing to become a recruiter at said staffing firm?

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Erin Wilson [00:07:09]:

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No, initially I went in for another job. Right. And then after meeting with a few recruiters, I asked one, what is it that you do? And they said, well, it's kind of like HR and sales. And I was like that. I want that. And I interviewed on the spot. And then I interviewed at two other agencies and ended up joining a tech recruiting firm.

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Devyn Mikell [00:07:29]:

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Nice. So your whole path has been in tech, right? Or maybe not, but I'm assuming.

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Erin Wilson [00:07:35]:

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Well, certainly as a backbone. Certainly as a backbone. The agency work I did for the first five years was all highly specialized technical recruiting. Although it covered a wide array of technologies, obviously it was all technology. Then I moved internal and ran talent for a video ad tech company. So again, a lot of tech, but was responsible for all the non tech roles too. So you have that. But then after acquisition and getting into the startup space, being a founder, actually the customer base has taken me everywhere you could imagine around the world and also in and outside of tech.

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Erin Wilson [00:08:15]:

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Some of the more recent years include things like battery sensor testers and things that may be more on the mechanical side or renewable energies, things that are not as much traditional tech software.

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Devyn Mikell [00:08:26]:

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Got you. So your journey, if you don't mind? How long has it been? Like, how long have you been in the recruiting space? I don't know people comfortable.

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Erin Wilson [00:08:38]:

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Hey, September 7. September 7. I'm at 16 years this month.

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Devyn Mikell [00:08:44]:

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Nice. Okay, so 16 year journey. I've seen, obviously seen some of your resume. Like, you've held leadership positions at companies that we all know and have loved at some point.

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Erin Wilson [00:08:58]:

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Like that, man, you got to talk about Yahoo like that, man.

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Devyn Mikell [00:09:04]:

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I thought I could slip it underneath the, you know, they're still good for fantasy football.

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Erin Wilson [00:09:08]:

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I know you're younger than me. You must not have a Yahoo email like me because I'm allegiant.

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Devyn Mikell [00:09:13]:

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So, fun fact, my first company, we started with a ymail. I don't know why we didn't need to. We could have very easily done a Gmail, but we started with ymail. So I have a little bit of history with Yahoo. And then they have fantasy football leagues still that are know that might be what's keeping them. How did you, what was your X Factor? What did you bring to the table that other talent leaders don't? What's your unique approach or what you think about when you go into a company and try to make positive change?

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Erin Wilson [00:09:48]:

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Yeah, man, I was just thinking about this recently, actually. So it's right on par. I mean, one, I didn't do it intentionally in the beginning. I wouldn't take any credit for that. I just worked hard. But as the career developed and I got more mature, I started to identify some of these patterns. And I think one of them is I have always found success if I join an organization when they're truly in need, when I can truly identify a business problem that's so impactful that it's easy for me to see why they would value my work and the value I would bring. That's the starting point for the discussion.

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Erin Wilson [00:10:23]:

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And so I think that really does depend on your ability to assess that. But super important, the next thing I'm looking at is just what is the overall vision in the company? Because as a talent leader, I don't believe my job is to fill jobs. I believe as a talent leader, my job is to build a company that achieves the vision of the CEO. So if that's my charter, my ability to execute on that charter is going to depend on is that vision clear? Can it be communicated throughout the lines and the ranks? Can everyone understand how their work ties back to that vision? I got to make sure that stuff's tight in order for me to do my work. But where I've been able to find that. I think the work has really gelled and you've seen the outcomes, the rapid growth to the companies. But I think those are those two. And the last piece is, I don't really approach it like recruiting.

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Erin Wilson [00:11:14]:

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I think a lot of folks say recruiting is like sales. I don't agree. I think recruiting is like product management. I think it's way more multidimensional. It's not black and white, it's not linear. And that'll give you something anecdotal, which is I don't have a problem telling people no. And as a talent leader, I think that that is an underrated skill that is very underdeveloped in the industry. I think the companies I've been successful in, it started because the first time they asked me to do whatever they thought was the best thing to do in recruiting, I probably told them that is not the best thing to be doing in recruiting right now.

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Erin Wilson [00:11:54]:

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Got you seeing how they responded? No is one of the first measures I could get.

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Devyn Mikell [00:11:59]:

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Yeah, I love being the host side of this because I get to get these hot first takes. And it's really wild that I've never heard that before. I know myself have even said this at some point, which is recruiting is like sales. I do see the parallels between being an SDR sales development rep and being a recruiter. I see them, but I also can understand what you're saying, which is it's not so white and black. Where do you think companies are getting it wrong? If you can think of specifics of like, you're viewing this in a very white and black way, talent leader, maybe you should think about all these other ways in which it broadens your perspective. What are some examples of things you've seen kind of shifting like that?

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Erin Wilson [00:12:47]:

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Well, the most transactional behavior set exists at the top of the funnel right around. So, you know, the idea of like, just keep sourcing, we'll get it done. That's not going to work. Right. But what I learned over time, Devyn, is that expecting them to care or comprehend recruiting at the same level we do was also the wrong mission. That's not interesting to them. They're not motivated to do that. So I think being able to explain to them, hey, I am compassionate for your situation.

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Erin Wilson [00:13:22]:

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Hiring manager recruiting is your number two priority all the time because you have another job, right?

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Devyn Mikell [00:13:27]:

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Correct.

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Erin Wilson [00:13:28]:

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So I'm going to treat it that way. I'm going to make it really easy for you. The way I'm going to do that is by establishing a shared set of data, a shared set of success. What does success look like? And that data is going to hold both of us accountable on the top of the funnel. Right. So you don't have to worry about how much I'm sourcing and I don't have to worry about how much you're screening. We have to agree that this data set, which means you're only going to spend 30 hours to make this higher instead of 300, is the right data set. Do you agree? And getting that buy in at the front, not that they'll drive or that I'll drive, but that the data will drive.

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Erin Wilson [00:14:13]:

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That's where I've found the success most commonly.

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Devyn Mikell [00:14:16]:

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Sounds like the friction point in your mind is, like, when it comes to the hiring manager, which it might not be what you're saying, but I think most talent leaders would agree, or most honestly, most recruiters would probably agree. Like, working with a hiring manager is challenging for a multitude of reasons. Like you said, this priority number two, even when it comes to time to do that, priority number two, it's still not always done really well and executed well. Where do you think recruiters can help? Be more consultative. Like, if you're a recruiter at a hospital, for example, a random hospital, and you just listen to this podcast, and they're like, hey, I want to get better with my hiring managers. What would be the first thing you do to make that relationship stronger, to lead with more data? Like, what would you bring to the table that's easy and executable.

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Erin Wilson [00:15:10]:

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Yeah. I love that you broke it down because that's the local level, right? I'm a recruiter. I'm one recruiter working with one hiring manager. I can't change the universe, but how do I fix my world, right? I love it. Right? And the truth is, you got to start with yourself. So for that recruiter who's listening, I would ask them this. Do you know how many first round interviews you need to do in order to generate a hire? Because if you don't know that, you don't know yourself, you shouldn't be consulting anyone in hiring. Real talk, right? Because that's where I want them to come from.

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Erin Wilson [00:15:39]:

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Hey, listen, hiring partner, typically, when I do this work, which I do for a living, about every nine nurses I talk to, I get one hired or I get two hired. With you, I've spoken to 18. We've hired none. Something's telling me we got to change. We got to iterate, right? I love the word iterate. Not change, iterate, forward. Forget back. We got to iterate forward.

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Erin Wilson [00:16:00]:

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So at a local level, I would love for that recruiter to know, have their own expectation. Hey, when I put in X, I get out Y. That's really what you can control. You can in some cases decide to keep working with that manager or not. Now if you're on the internal team, you may need to escalate that. Right. But the point is I would start local on the same level. D, I would go up to the talent leader because I know they're listening.

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Erin Wilson [00:16:24]:

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Your job is not the same. If you go in and talk to one hiring manager about recruiting numbers, you're going to lose that argument all the time because you're a leader talking about line level stuff, you got to talk about leadership stuff. So there's a lot of talent leaders who have headcount plans. I've never seen one show me a unified prioritization sheet. What do I mean by that? Well, when I explain it to you, you're going to be like, oh, it makes perfect sense. And it comes back to the product manager side of it again. Right. We've got four departments.

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Erin Wilson [00:16:57]:

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They all have ten jobs. That's our headcount plan. Which job is most important? Nobody knows. Now if you ask department head number one which one's more important, they'll tell you in their ten. This one's one, this one's four. But that still doesn't help recruiting because we're one team serving four departments. So there's four number one priorities. Which one's most priority, nobody knows.

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Devyn Mikell [00:17:21]:

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Right.

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Erin Wilson [00:17:21]:

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So I really wish town leaders would come at this approach from a much more operational standpoint, a lot more rigor, right. And say, hey, we got 40 jobs, ten per department. You all stack ranked them. That's great. Now we've consolidated those into 40 jobs and we've had another layer. Stack rank those. We'll call that the CEO, CEO, CFO. Now of the 40, we actually have a rank, one through 40.

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Erin Wilson [00:17:46]:

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And that actually now says we can go execute. Because guess what, if you're not one through ten, you're not getting service right now and we can communicate that to you. And if we could communicate that to you, you don't expect me to be doing first round interviews. And if I'm not doing first round interviews when you're not really hiring, then I won't get to twelve first round interviews with no hire.

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Devyn Mikell [00:18:04]:

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Right, I see.

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Erin Wilson [00:18:05]:

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So it's just a major prioritization exercise. But the problem is nobody takes that extra step. And without it, how do you communicate and how do you manage a shared set of resources? I'm open to other solutions. I just don't see those in the market either.

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Devyn Mikell [00:18:20]:

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So typical, I guess status quo right now is what you're saying is you get a headcount planning sheet of roles that are going to be open, let's say, in this calendar year, and then it's like, that's it. We start recruiting. That's really it. Gotcha.

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Erin Wilson [00:18:37]:

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Then what does it become? Slack DMs and hallway conversations and little backdoor trade offs on headcounts, which I'm not judging that either. You're a tech company. You want to move fast, but documentation is important. We got to start. Yeah, I think those are two areas where if you're a leader, you could implement that the very next time you do headcount. All you need is buy in from your leaders, which they should want the company to be more effective. And if you're a local recruiter, you can do that today.

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Devyn Mikell [00:19:07]:

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Right. I think that's one of the things I've always as being in the founder seat and having a different lens on when I'm talking to these companies. You can very well. I'd say like eight out of, I'd argue seven or eight out of ten of the companies I talk to at the leader level might not know these metrics, like the things that they are telling me they want to improve. Like, I'll say, hey, what's like the number one metric you're looking to improve? And in our space for my company, it's usually time to hire, right? Or they might say time to fill, or whatever it is. And I'll be like, what is it today?

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Erin Wilson [00:19:42]:

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And they're like, I'm not sure.

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Devyn Mikell [00:19:43]:

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I'll have to get it to you. And it's always funny because I'm like, how do you. I don't know if this is the norm in recruiting. It's like, we all want to improve, but we don't really know what we're improving. Or, I don't know. Maybe that's just the people I've spoke with. What have you seen as far as general shortcomings when it comes to data?

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Erin Wilson [00:20:03]:

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No, I think you're spot on. The most common answer I get is, I don't know. Our ATS is a mess. I don't know. Lever sucks. I don't know my numbers. But no, I think there's value in what you just said, too, because I want to be upset. Right.

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Erin Wilson [00:20:20]:

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I want people to be more data driven. But I have felt like this really vulnerable. I felt this way in my life outside of work, actually as a child I felt like I was trained to go to college. Like from the day I grew up, it was like, you're going to get good grades, you're going to go to college, get college, you're going to get a good job. Boom, boom, boom.

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Devyn Mikell [00:20:39]:

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Right?

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Erin Wilson [00:20:39]:

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And then you know what happened, dude? I was the first one in my family to leave and go to college. And when I got there, there was no instruction manual. They had trained me on the right thing, right? But no one was teaching me anymore how to go about it. And I think there's just a very big lack of education. There's a very big lack of that teaching component in the space on all sides. Right? The hiring manager is not getting coached. Even when they do, they don't put it in practice very often because what if you're only hiring one person a year? You're not going to be trained up on that. Recruiters, the market doesn't really give them the benefit of the doubt to learn the holistic way to do it.

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Erin Wilson [00:21:18]:

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And candidates never get feedback, so they're not being taught either. So I'm pretty obsessed with, there is a more transparent and collaborative way to do this job which yields data which can be shared with all three people involved and improve the experience for all three people involved. Hopefully it starts with these leaders getting some buy in on some of those processes we're talking about. But I would start there not in the systems, which is what they may be telling you. Right? Like, oh, I can't get it because of X. It's like, well, unless everyone agrees that that's how you should be doing recruiting, it ain't the right, right.

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Devyn Mikell [00:21:53]:

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Okay, so you went staffing, that's where you stepped into recruiting. Then you went internal, stayed internal with Yahoo. Which I'm going to imagine is the pivotal moment. Like pivotal period for you. But I could be wrong. So is that the pivotal period where you're like, hey, I am really good at this, so good that I'm going to start a company in this or is this something else?

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Erin Wilson [00:22:19]:

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It was a pivotal time in my career. That wasn't the thinking though, but got you, I will tell you that. Look, I love recruiting, man. I did it externally and then I was really fortunate. And when I joined Bright role, it was a hell of a run. There are like 90 folks. When I joined, I was the first recruiter hired in with Joanna Lee, who was also great. She was on the business side, eventually became head of talent and we did 550 hires in two and a half years, exited Yahoo.

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Erin Wilson [00:22:46]:

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The thing that I got really excited about though, wasn't all the hires, wasn't the exit, it was that I had done that with a team of 13 and only nine recruiters. And I look in the market across the way and Dropbox had 30 recruiters, Box.com had 35 recruiters, five leaders on the team. I mean, they were building real empires. And I was thinking, how do I do more with less every day? And so when I got to Yahoo. The pivotal moment was when we were figuring out what I was going to do for work at Yahoo. Devyn, because the initial opportunity was linear to my career. It was, hey, do you want to run tech recruiting globally for Yahoo. Which for most people in my field that would be the gig, right? There's top five Internet companies.

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Erin Wilson [00:23:38]:

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Who cares if they're number five out of five at the time? But the point is they're top five and you're running tech recruitment. And most of the people in that job at the other four had been there for five or seven years and they weren't going anywhere. This was the only one on the market they were offering to me. But the truth is I looked at it and I'm a passion driven dude. So you want me to lead recruiting for Yahoo. I have no passion for Yahoo. I didn't choose to join Yahoo, so I declined. And alternatively I said, what's the hardest problem that I could possibly solve for Yahoo? What is that job? Whatever that job's called, I want that one.

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Erin Wilson [00:24:17]:

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And they came back and said, well, our head of recruitment operations just resigned to go to. Indeed. And that means there's a group of 35 people sourcing compliance, all our software, everything besides the actual pipeline stuff. And we got no one to run it and it's global and it's nasty, naughty. I was like, I'll take that one, I'll take that job. So that was certainly a pivotal moment in the sense of like you saw me deviating from my bread and butter in order to continue driving impact, in order to continue challenging myself and in order to get closer to the technology, to stay close to the technology. A year later, I had verbally resigned from Yahoo. And the SVP of people technology from the CIO's org, Ben Haynes, found me in the cafeteria and notified me that I was not resigning.

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Erin Wilson [00:25:13]:

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And in fact that he was recruiting me to join the CIO's org. And he did it in a real cool kind of way. He's one of the biggest badasses out there. So I joined the CIO's Org at Yahoo. And that was the first time in ten years I didn't have direct reports Devyn and it was just me and I had 125 software applications under management. I was overseeing internal mobility for Yahoo and I was building a new platform for internal mobility. And after that the idea of just running recruiting groups was never going to know. At that point I was building products while solving recruiting problems while scaling myself.

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Erin Wilson [00:25:53]:

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And so going back it didn't work. But when I moved into Hirepool and Team AI and I apologize for being long winded but this is the shoehorn of the thing, I was leaving Yahoo and I was going to go be ahead of talent again because pragmatically speaking I had built some stuff Yahoo. But I need to go get a job, need to provide for my young children. At the time I was coming off a win, right? So I was like let me go find another head of talent job. But I wanted to do it at an early stage startup, smaller than Brightroll. When I had joined I wanted to get close with the CEO and be earlier. This is the case. And what I found after generating a handful of offers and thinking I was going to work for one of them, I couldn't take the offer.

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Erin Wilson [00:26:40]:

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And I went to meet with the CEO and I explained to him that if I were going to take an offer for head of talent ever again I would have taken his offer. But that I believe that that chapter in my career is closed and what I was going to do is start a company instead because I really wanted to build my vision, I didn't want to build somebody else's vision, which is always what my job was. I think I said that at the beginning of this call.

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Devyn Mikell [00:27:02]:

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Right, right.

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Erin Wilson [00:27:02]:

‍

So that was the biggest turning point was you know what, I'm going to stop doing recruiting for the enterprise because they don't care about it the way I do and I'm going to start doing recruiting for myself, which at Hirepool was the job seeker, underrepresented job seekers and at Team AI it was actually for the recruiters is what I started building for. So that was the big pivot point was deciding I'm going to stop giving my recruiting skills to other companies and I'm going to start investing them in myself and my industry and my peers.

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Devyn Mikell [00:27:33]:

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That's what I do really like about this space is it does feel like weirdly feels mobile. As I talk to a lot of leaders that end up in these roles that I've actually never heard of, they're just like random things, but you started off as a recruiter and who knows where that's going to take you. I guess for those who, and I've alluded to it a little bit, but for those who are listening, who don't know what those companies are, maybe just tell us about Team AI, since that's the current company. What does Team AI do? Who's it for?

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Erin Wilson [00:28:09]:

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Team AI. At a company level, we just believe that the entire recruiting industry is ripe for disruption. I hate to be cliche, but it's true. And now is the time. And what I mean by that is simply it can be done way more efficient and more effectively than it's being done right now. There's no additional comments other than that.

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Devyn Mikell [00:28:31]:

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Right, agreed.

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Erin Wilson [00:28:33]:

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As far as what we built, we've really leaned into technology and so we only raised 1 million, but we've bootstrapped more than ten and invested it all back into a platform. And the whole point of the platform has sort of couple designed intentions. One, it is a Iron man suit for the actual recruiter. So what does that mean? Well, it has a whole bunch of features and stuff. Don't worry about it. But the point is you step into it and it amplifies the work you do as a recruiter. The key of the system is it's a video based operating system, Devyn, and the reason is because people don't hire resumes, people hire people. So we genuinely believe that all the magic in recruiting happens starts in the first conversation, just like you and I are talking right now, in that what recruiters do is extremely valuable, but misunderstood.

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Erin Wilson [00:29:28]:

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So the actual software we build is designed to amplify the work. Recruiters do not automate the workflow purely, and not use AI to do the job for you either, but it actually amplifies the work you do. So just imagine, for example, if you were doing, maybe you're reviewing profiles for a customer of yours. Now, when you do that in the sysTem, by the time you're done, everything you've learned has been shared with the hiring manager, any sourcing team you're working with, any recruiters you're collaborating with, with, and you're already moving on to your next meeting. You're not having to go back and do that work to make sure, communicate and get people on the same page. So I'll have to show it to you sometime. Yeah, I see a lot more. But the point is, if you're a recruiter out there in the world, you feel like no one's ever designed tools that understand what the fuck you're supposed to be doing.

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Erin Wilson [00:30:17]:

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You're going to love Team AI. Got it. You have to put one of those little emojis I just cursed. My bad.

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Devyn Mikell [00:30:25]:

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I doubt we'll see. We like to be authentic. Where do you see the future heading for talent? I mean, that's a broad, loaded question, but what is the thing that you think about from your lens? If you were giving an answer to that question, what's the future of talent looking like?

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Erin Wilson [00:30:46]:

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To Aaron man, the future of talent is continuous learning, continuous development. That is the future of talent. It is not static, it is not transactional. It is not linear. It is continuous learning, continuous development. I think that in the market you will see a great divide in the industry. If there are a million recruiters in the industry today, there will be far less in a couple of years. Not to say they won't bounce back, but the next few years are going to be designed for those to succeed who can really be consultative, who can really understand the bottom line of the business they're recruiting for while they're recruiting for it, companies are going to care less about how they employ recruiters.

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Erin Wilson [00:31:26]:

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They're still going to work with them, but they're only going to work with them when they really need to it. So I think you're going to see a lot more fluidity and flexibility in the space than you've seen in previous years. Right? There was like, oh, I'm only internal. Oh, I'm only external. Oh, I only work for myself. Well, that ain't going to work if you want to make money in the next. People are. But companies don't care.

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Erin Wilson [00:31:49]:

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They're not going to convince recruiters to come work there full time. They have no interest in rebuilding their recruiting teams the way they are. Look at your greatest indicator are the big tech companies. Okay, if you're looking at a Google or any of the Fang companies, they were the first to build internal recruiting teams. They built them the biggest, the fastest. They even spent millions and millions of dollars building their own software systems internally. Now they're implementing AI. Their recruiting teams will never be as big as they ever were, and that's the trend.

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Erin Wilson [00:32:19]:

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So what was 1000 will be 700.

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Devyn Mikell [00:32:23]:

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Got you.

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Erin Wilson [00:32:24]:

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So I just think for individuals, if you're playing defense, be careful because you might find yourself out of a game before you know it.

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Devyn Mikell [00:32:33]:

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Facts, which is a great segue into our question of the week. We could obviously go on forever going general conversation, but I like to do this question of the week so that we get the audience involved as well, so you get first pass at the question, but then I give them the opportunity to take a qualify interview and answer their question. So for those who are listening, the link to answer this question will be in the description. If your answer is selected as the best, we will send you a gift from myself. So definitely hop on and participate. But Aaron, you get first pass. So what is one highly overlooked competency that could make a recruiter a great talent mean?

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Erin Wilson [00:33:19]:

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I just think there's. I can't. I can't give you three. I mean, coaching is highly underrated. You know, being the best recruiter doesn't make you the best talent leader. Actually, you got to be a great coach to be a great talent leader. Listening. I would say the most underrated skill is listening.

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Erin Wilson [00:33:36]:

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Every other skill is about talking and being this and being that. But if you listen, people will tell you everything you need to know. Listening. Coaching. I really wish recruiters understood business more. The difference between this is me iterating. By the way, my third answer is the best answer. The business acumen is the difference between a recruiting manager and a head of talent that really knows their stuff.

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Erin Wilson [00:34:00]:

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The business acumen is the difference between here's a headcount plan. Go fill it. And Devyn, can you join us in the executive meeting? We're about to talk about headcount strategy. So the business acumen is really that maybe singular answer that encompasses some of the things I was thinking about.

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Devyn Mikell [00:34:16]:

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Yeah, I love that one. They're all three great, obviously, but that one right there is just the way you framed it out. Being in the room versus not being in the room, if that's the goal, business acumen is the key.

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Erin Wilson [00:34:28]:

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And by the way, for the last five years, talent was hoping that the HRo Group was going to bring him into the table. But the truth is, they don't. A lot of them don't even have the seat at the table either. So I think if you're a leader looking to work in the future of work and you want a seat at the table, you got to know that nobody's going to give it to you. You got to go get it. Agreed.

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Devyn Mikell [00:34:48]:

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Well, Aaron, this was so easy to get through, 35 minutes of talking, and I appreciate your time and I think everyone's going to want to know more about you and about Team AI. So how would you like people to connect with you in the future?

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Erin Wilson [00:35:06]:

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Actually, I'll be really excited to share some news and connect with people in the near future as well, but I cannot say more at this time. So for those of you who are interested, you're going to have to wait for me to share more and come back. But keep an eye out, y'all. I'm excited to share more soon.

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Devyn Mikell [00:35:23]:

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Good deal. Well, if you like this episode as much as I did, then make sure you subscribe to Hire Quality. There's going to be many more Hire Quality conversations coming out, but make sure you subscribe so you never miss a beat like this podcast if you're on YouTube or anything like that. And again, Aaron, I appreciate your time. It's been great and we'll be back with more soon.

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Erin Wilson [00:35:43]:

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Thanks everyone. Have a good one, y'all.