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Friends,

Another week, another set of big tech lay offs - and whispers of more to come from other firms which ‘over hired’ in 2021-2022 in anticipation of a world which didn’t arrive. Of course members of the community are affected by this, and as recruiters, we may be finder it harder to get into the market at equivalent level than, say, a software engineer.

Given this, it is important that we remind ourselves of some resources which can help: join the Brainfood Talent Community, where approved employers can contact you for recruiter jobs, raise your visibility by taking part in the Brainfood Tribune (comment below if you want to do it, I will DM details on how) and volunteer to be a guest on Brainfood Live. Always looking for guests to appear on the show where no one is expected to be an expert - its an informal discussion which happens to be broadcast! Again, comment below to put your name forward and add in some detail as what topics you feel you want to talk about most.

Special thanks this week to Romuald Restout, Eugène van den Hemel, Joey NK Koksal, Heidi Wassini, Michael Blakley, Kevin Green, Alison Birch, Dave Hazlehurst, Hannah Morgan, Tim Sanchez, Shireen DuPreez, Rob Walker, Steve Jacobs, John Bersentes, ZiChuan Lim, Sarah Rourke, Dwayne Allen and Jacob Paul for your public endorsements of all things brainfood last week - essential for keeping this one-person show on the road. Scores updated on the Brainfood Hall of Fame!

Can you help? Share this newsletter with a friend in your network who you think might also benefit from it.

Thanks!

What do Brainfooders Think?

…about how much we would pay for premium ChatGPT? Turns out quite a few of us have reached the skeptical phase, perhaps with an eye of competitor products about to be released by Google amongst others. Only 14% would pay the reputed $42 USD per month price tag!

There is also of course, a global inequity issue; $42 USD may be a payable price for a US brainfooder, but something very high cost to a community member in Bangladesh. No company or product has really been able to price according to purchasing power, without first collecting identity data, something which OpenAI do not plan to do. This, I think, is the angle for attack for Google, if they ever get their act together. Lots to think about, and more on ChatGPT later on, including the latest poll so make sure you vote at the end of the newsletter.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep191 - Personalised vs Standardised? How best to do Candidate Experience.

Excited to bring you this conversation on CX this week; we want standardisation for benchmarking, metrics and equity, yet we want personalisation to recognise the individual context of each candidate. Can you do both? If not, which leads the other? We’re going to find out with another expert panel of community members. On Friday 3rd February, 12pm GMT - register here

CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

The Brainfood

1. 7 Trends That Will Shape Talent Acquisition 2023

Important trends for not only 2023 but beyond as social contract between workers and companies continues the shift toward looser, more flexible, more contingent relationships. Two trends in particular of vital important to talent acquisition professionals - the increasing emphasis on internal mobility and the expansion of the interim workers in workforce population. We’re going to need a new name, and an expanded scope or else the department will shrink in importance along with the demand. Accessible report, download it here. H/T to brainfooder Heidi Wassini for the share in the brainfood online community.

FUTURE OF WORK

2. 40 Ideas to Shake Up Your Hiring Process

I’m skeptical of listicles as a general rule but was more than pleasantly surprised with this crowdsourced effort from HBR, which takes the challenge of how employers can improve their appeal to candidates and delivers long list of do-able ideas . Have a read of this folks, you’re going to get something out of it.

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

3. A Different Approach to Google’s Layoffs

We talked about the psychological impact of unexpected involuntary redundancy in Brainfood Live Ep183, and it seems that the suddenness of being cut off has a disproportionate impact on how the affected employee feels about. Google’s redundancy package was actually extraordinarily generous, but it was the below par expectation setting and off boarding that produced the typical outcry. Interestingly, the phenomenon of day-in-the-life TikTokers give us direct insight into the psychology. This thoughtful post from a current Googler finds the balance between competing priorities of company security vs employee empathy, avoiding the dual temptations of defensiveness or condemnation.

CULTURE

4. ChatGPT Cheat Sheet

The ChatGPT roller coaster is still gathering pace, and I’m pretty sure no one is entirely on top of it. We’ll do our best to recap what’s happened in the past 4 weeks, with Recruiter Use Cases for ChatGPT, part 2! in Feb 10th - already 400+ registered, so it looks like another blockbuster turnout on the cards. Register here to save your seat. In the meantime, this cheat sheet not only looks pretty useful, but contains enough technical know-how to also be educational on how this damn thing actually works. Shared already in the brainfood online community, but worth sharing again here, as it’s that good.

AI

4. Recursive Middle Manager Hell

I predict that Less Wrong will be one of the survivors of the post-ChatGPT blogging world. The ideas and the language used to express them are going to be tough for even the most well trained AI to reproduce. This post channels Cyril Northcote Parkinson in it’s critique of middle management, but also an explanation as to why it will be inevitably so as an organisation scales. Worth chewing over this, as company’s crunch down in scale and the mantra of smaller, leaner, faster takes over grow-at-all-costs hyper scaling as the dominant paradigm.

CULTURE

5. How Will Tech Jobs Change in 2023?

Bit of curates egg this post, but I like it because it weaves together the disparity in order to try and create a cohesive narrative, and is unafraid to include obviously relevant yet challenging topics such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Elon Musk as a market setter for tech layoffs and the motivation of employers to get people back to the office. Decent references too, worth a read for tech recruiters - and I would also say - decent nurture content for your tech candidates.

ECONOMY

6. Social Media Content Calendar 2023

Hope all recruitment marketers have seen this? Perhaps the most comprehensive social media calendar I’ve seen, which lists important events, holidays, celebrations and so forth every day of the year. You’ll probably have a version of this somewhere, but I doubt anything will be as rich as this. Thanks to Alonso in the EB webinar who shared this in chat - I downloaded it, you probably should too.

CONTENT MARKETING

7. Impact of the Post Brexit Immigration System on the UK Labour Market

By democratically voting to leave the EU in 2016, the UK made the decision to cut itself off from a significant labour market of a theoretical 400 million workers. What the implications were to be for the economy were hotly contested at the time, especially for sectors heavily dependent on EU labour - healthcare, construction, hospitality, retail.

Now, 3 years after implementation, we are have a better picture - immigration is about the same as pre-Brexit, but with non-EU replacing EU as sources of external labour. We talked about Global Mobility on Brainfood Live last Friday, and this research is a fine complement to the soundtrack. Important read for all UK recruiters.

ECONOMY

8. Networked Autonomous Organisations (NAOs)

The Generative AI hype train has seemingly sidelined Web3, but there are some equally interesting innovations going on in the blockchain world, especially with new thinking on how to organise a system of labour. We know already about Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAO) but how about this twist - the Networked Autonomous Organisation (NAO)? This may be semantics but it seems to me to be a better descriptor for a more likely type of organisation, one which has network - and therefore potentially emergent clustering - from a set of programmable rules.

BLOCKCHAIN

9. What We Look for in Resumes

This is actually a really clever recruitment advert. By analysing, documenting and then exposing his internal resume assessment process, founder Chip Huyen is able to describe the qualities of the candidates he is really looking for in a post that went viral with the audience he recruits from. I think this is reproducible technique, and a great example of the value of ‘working in public’ - your internal documentation becomes your marketing.

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING

10. The Fastest Rehire in History

Fun story from the world of football, where Serie A football club Salernitana reappointed manager Davide Nicola, two days after being impulsively sacked by club president Danilo Iervolino after a 8-2 loss to Atalanta. "You only realise how much you love someone when they leave," Iervolino said. On the one hand you have to condemn the rashness of decision making, on the other recognise the humility it takes to reverse a very public decision. I have to say, I’m rooting for Salernitana now until the end of the season 🤣

CULTURE

The Podcasts

11. The Economy in 2023

I think we’re deep enough into the year for this to be the last issue where I’ll be featuring prediction posts. Dr. Mohamed El-Erian in interview with Dan Senor on why the global economy might never be the same after 2023.

ECONOMY

12. Hung Lee in Talent Surgery - Life Changing Events, Chat GPT VS TA & Work Phenomena's

This is the sort of hustle you want to see from the community. Brainfooders Steve Jacobs and Yasar Ahmad decided to do a video podcast and weeks later they are on Episode 3, complete with studio, high production value and quality guests like me! 🤣. Pleasure to speak with these two on topics outside the norm, have a watch and listen here.

COMMUNITY

13. StrictlyVC in Conversation with Sam Altman, Pt1 and Pt2

Sam Altman, the CEO of Open.AI, the company behind ChatGPT, in an interview two parter with StrictlyVC. These are the most substantive recent interviews with him and - he actually gives answers to questions without the caveats we’re now used to seeing in ChatGPT. Important interviews

AI

End Note

So I’m in Hong Kong and it’s been great to see the family and chill out in the village. We’re way up North here in rural New Territories and you couldn’t be further away from the hustle and bustle stereotype of an East Asian megacity - you’re more likely to see a feral Water Buffalo here than a nightclub 🤣. Been great to see the family and find everyone in good shape, especially my grandparents are now both so old that they don’t seem to be able to age any further at this point. This will be HQ for the next 4 weeks, so spare a thought for my mate Tanc who is flat sitting in London and has responsibilities for pet turtle…

…my own situation has got me thinking about today’s poll - whether members of the community are thinking of moving around now lockdowns are history and remote has accelerated to mainstream adoption. Give this a poll and go and let us know what you think!

PS: if you are staying put, can you comment as to where you are now, and why? And if you are thinking about moving or have moved, where have you moved to?

Leave a comment

Have a great week everybody

Hung