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Friends,

Happy New Year to you all!

I hope everyone has had the opportunity to take some rest over the holiday period and have come back to work with the renewed energy for 2024.

For me, the break has helped crystallise some thoughts on how I can better serve the community. One of things I want to do a better is platforming more and different voices from within the community. One of these platforms is Brainfood Live On Air, the weekly video livestream I do every Friday, where we discuss the contents of this newsletter, as well as have a focused discussion on the industry topics of the day.

Would you like to be a guest on a show in 2024?

If so, complete this brief form with your contact details, and rank order the brainfood topics of interest!

Thanks to: Eugène van den Hemel, Steven Davies, Rob Walker, Izka Gonzalez, Joey NK Koksal, Colin Donnery, Kevin Green, Richard Bradley, Gordon Dudley and Matt Smyth for your public endorsement last week - this is the best way to keep the community growing - cheers 👊

Can you help? Share this newsletter with a friend who needs a boost 😀

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What Do Brainfooders Think?

This is the most overwhelming verdict on a brainfood poll we’ve ever done 🤣

A massive 65% of us have had enough of the club / bar scrum and prefer to hang out with close friends with home freezing cold commute home. Well done on all of those who managed to do this last week. Thanks all who voted - make sure you scroll to the end to cast your vote on this week’s topic.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep240 - Forecasting 2024 Year in Recruitment, Part Two

We’re back with Part 2 of our Forecasting 2024 two parter - this time we’re looking at the the state of the In-house recruiter market, small agency market, role of DEI in 2024, general labour market & job advertiser and job seeker behaviour. All star cast folks - we’re on Friday 12th January, 2pm GMT - register here

The Brainfood

1. Forecasting 2024 Year in Recruitment, Part One

I’ve had 20 predictions for recruiting in 2024, this is the essay discussing the first 5 - Employer policy on AI usage by job candidates, chatbot implementations on career pages, record attendance for the events industry and two divergent trends - TA expanding scope to take on traditionally HR work, and senior execs increasingly moving to fractional mode of work. Have a read, let me know what you think.

SOCIETY

2. End of Year Pay Report 2023

Compensation remains the single most important component of your EVP, so you had better get a grip as to how yours compares to the rest of the market. Levels.fyi have been a godsend since they first launched their employer comparison service and EOY reports like this keeps them top of mind. Tech / US data. Have a read.

CULTURE

3. AI's Predictable Path: 7 Things to Expect From AI in 2024+

The central premise of this astonishing essay from infosec expert David Meissner, is that whilst technology innovation is unpredictable, human beings are not, hence the best way to figure out what is going to happen with AI is by reviewing human motivations. That simple premise turns into a magnus opus which manages to be readable despite being nearly 20,000 words long. Dazzling essay on the future of path of AI, particularly the advent of Digital Assistants who will become the mediating layer between human + (all) services.

AI

4. What Does the Deprecation of the Sitemaps Endpoint Mean for Job Boards and Aggregators?

Brainfooder Alexander Chukovski is such a unique (and therefore invaluable) commentator in our industry. His main thing is talking about technical minutae no one else notices but which have significant second order impact down the line. Any property hosting job adverts would do well to pay attention to this post, which outlines the importance of shifting to Indexing API for site updates if you have not already done so….

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING

5. The Companies Employees Don’t Want to Leave in 2023

Analysis of LinkedIn data in US, UK, Canada and Australia to find which employers have the lowest attrition rates and longest tenured employees. I couldn’t help but think of the discord between the employers listed here and those cited by job seekers as most attractive (see Universum’s Worlds Most Attractive Employers 2023 report) to join. Could it be that strong EB doesn’t necessarily correlate into great employee experience? Perish that thought…

EMPLOYER BRANDING

6. 50% Will Limit Social Media Use by 2025

The rapid adoption of GenAI in search engines will significantly disrupt CMOs’ ability to harness organic search to drive sales

One persistently under rated impact of GenAI will be the decline of organic search traffic as ‘search generative experiences’ delivers upon the user enquiry and effectively stops users from clicking on the blue links. Is everyone’s site visitor numbers destined to go down from here? CMO’s from Gartner survey seem to think so, summarised in this December press release.

RECRUITMENT MARKETING

7. Talent Acquisition Trends for 2024

I’m involved in not one but two ‘hiring trends in 2024’ based webinars over the next few weeks (sign up to one with Pillar 16th Jan here and then with Pera on the 6th Feb here), so this overview by Korn Ferry comes in handy 🤣. Good to see AI-enabled Job Candidates in at No2, as well as crunch time for relo as employers roll back remote in at No6. What else do you see as major trends for TA in 2024?

SOCIETY

8. The State of UX 2024

Beautifully presented interactive website on the State of UX, which not only reviews the trends in design but also projects the impact of AI on the size and significance of UX teams. Pulls no punches here - UX teams will get smaller, and with that, shrink in power and influence. A likely future for everybody regardless of role so have a read…

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

9. Tax Code Change Responsible for More Tech Layoffs?

Really interesting thread on how a 2023 change in US Federal tax code might be inadvertently triggering increased lay offs in tech startups no longer able to write off hiring developers as R&D tax credit. Great work by Gergely Orosz, this was under discussed late 2023 but it appears to be factor in the continuing malaise in the VC backed tech sector. Have a read here. H/T to brainfooder Michael Blakely for the share

ECONOMY

10. Job Ads with Wide Pay Ranges Can Deter Applicants

One of the more predictable ways in which US employers have been adhering to the letter, rather than the spirit of the law on pay transparency has been to publish wide pay bands on job adverts. Not only not cute, but also not very clever as it seems that having wide pay bands is discrediting to the advertiser, deterring potentially suitable job applicants. Pay transparency is coming and sooner employers get into the spirit, the better it is going to be - for them

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING

The Podcasts

11. Forecasting 2024 Workplace Trends with Wharton Professor Matthew Bidwell

The maturation of remote working is well outlined in this short interview with Matthew Bidwell. We’re crystallising our models into full remote, full on premise, hybrid of various flavours, but mostly hybrid fixed with the days dedicated to be in office to everyone. Worth a listen

REMOTE WORKING

12. Predictions 2024

Chad and Cheese outrageous style is a perfect disguise for some of the most erudite analysis in the industry. Always good fun, this episode is a combo the review of their 2023 predictions year past (100% fail rate) and a go again for 2024. Here’s what’s great about these predictions - they are hyper specific and testable. Have a listen.

ECONOMY

13. 20 Jobs DISAPPEARING NOW Due To AI (New Reports)

This is a great channel which tracks the development of AI, in a way which is accessible to most. List of jobs which are most highly exposed to AI, to such a. degree that they are most likely to be replaced by AI, complete with demo’s. A very well done video

AI

End Note

I’m interested in understanding more about how we as a community understand Skills Based Hiring. When you hear the term, what do you understand by it? Check out the poll below and share your vote.

Further: if you have implemented SBH or are thinking about doing so in 2024, what do you anticipate the recruitment process to look like? Love to start a discussion thread on this!

Leave a comment

Thanks for reading everyone

Have a great week ahead

Hung