Latest / Content, Briefly / People Ops VP Tia Fomenoff on Why Job Hunting is so Hard Right Now

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People Ops VP Tia Fomenoff on Why Job Hunting is so Hard Right Now · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
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• 0:57
  Hey, and thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Content Briefly. We've got a different episode for you today.
• 1:02
  We've got Tia Filmonoff, who's the VP of people at PurposeMed, on to talk about the current hiring landscape.
• 1:08
  One thing we've heard in the Superpath community, on our LinkedIn and elsewhere is how difficult it is, not even just to find a job, which is difficult, but even just to hear back when you apply for a job.
• 1:17
  You know, I've heard some, I guess, horror stories from people about what the job hunting process is like right now, and I just wanted to try to understand from a senior people ops leader, you know, what is the view from the other side?
• 1:28
  What is your life like? How are you thinking strategically about hiring? Where does AI fit into all this? Is this the new normal, or is this a dip that we expect to recover from?
• 1:37
  Like, just kind of fill us in from the VP of people perspective on what's going on right now, and Tia did just that. Really insightful episode. I hope that people get a lot of value from it.
• 1:47
  Doesn't necessarily make your job hunting journey easier if you're in that position right now, but hopefully you get some, you know, at least some new perspective on it. So very thankful for Tia for coming on.
• 1:58
  She is, uh, leading people operations across four different brands within PurposeMed, and they are actually hiring, so if you like [laughs] what Tia has to say and wanna work with them, purposemed.com/careers.
• 2:09
  I'll put the link in the show notes there. I also mentioned a link that I would drop from Wade Foster, the CEO of Zapier, about AI fluency and how they're measuring that in their own hiring.
• 2:18
  Uh, you know, Zapier's really like tip of the spear when it comes to AI adoption, but I would imagine that this is probably the direction some companies will be going, that they'll actually be assessing AI fluency, so I'll drop that, the tweet, the link to a tweet that I'll put in the show notes so people can check that out too.
• 2:31
  Quick plug for Superpath Pro. There's lots of cool things going on in there. Today I will promote the Slack community, which is really like the center of gravity of Superpath.
• 2:39
  That's where the day-to-day goings on are all happening, so there's tons of great conversations. You can start one, you can join one, you can also just be a fly on the wall. Either way, you're gonna learn something.
• 2:49
  There's cool conversations happening about AI and kinda all this, like, new change that we're all experiencing, but there's also really good evergreen stuff that comes up all the time.
• 2:57
  So there's always an opportunity to learn, always an opportunity to contribute if you want to, always an opportunity to gain some inspiration for your own work. So you can learn all about that, superpath.co.
• 3:06
  Come try it free for 30 days. Okay, I'll get out of the way now. Please enjoy this conversation with Tia Filmonoff. Hey, everybody, Jimmy from Superpath today. Here with another episode of Content Briefly.
• 3:15
  A totally different episode. So we have Tia Filmonoff, VP of people ops at PurposeMed. Uh, we will not be talking about content marketing today, but we're gonna be talking instead about the hiring landscape.
• 3:26
  Uh, I have a bunch of questions for you, Tia, but before we get into all that, thank you for being here. And would you mind introducing yourself to people? Tell us a little bit about your career.
• 3:33
  I know you went from marketing and now into people ops, and tell us a little bit about what you do today too. Thanks, Jimmy. I'm very excited to be here to shed some [laughs] light on the other side of hiring today.
• 3:43
  Um, yeah, my background is, I guess, not that unique in tech since people go from industry to industry and job to job all the time, but I actually started my career off in nonprofit in marketing.
• 3:55
  And so I was handling all the social media for my local tourism board. Moved down to Vancouver. I was living up in a small town in northern British Columbia in Canada when I was growing up.
• 4:05
  Uh, came down to Vancouver to experience big city life, joined my first startup at the time, which was- Unbounce... Unbounce. Yeah. So I'm sure some of- Awesome... your listeners know a lot about that.
• 4:15
  I was there for a few years and then, uh, changed over to actually more of a customer success role while I was there.
• 4:21
  Then moved to another company that a lot of your listeners probably know, Buffer, and was there for a very short stint, but it was still very exciting and during their growth period.
• 4:30
  Um, and then from there, spent quite a few years at another local startup called Thinkific, and that's where I joined more of the people space.
• 4:38
  So I started off in product marketing, and then as we were growing, we went from about 20, 30 people when I first started to over 500 a couple of years later.
• 4:48
  And so, uh, during all that scaling was when I got into the people side. So I've been doing this for about nine years now. Now at PurposeMed.
• 4:56
  We are a company that is trying to improve access to healthcare for underserved communities, specifically complex care. Our main verticals are Freddie, which provides HIV prevention and care through, uh, PrEP.
• 5:11
  We have Freda, which is an ADHD diagnosis and treatment platform and services, um, mainly for women. And then Foria is our latest venture, and that's for gender affirmation. Very cool. Really interesting. Yes.
• 5:25
  Can you help us understand, like what is the scope of your role as VP of people ops? I mean, there's like a significant strategic element to it.
• 5:33
  Automatic- that's something I have zero experience with, so I'd be curious, like what i- you know, like what is your day-to-day like, but also like what is your year-to-year like?
• 5:41
  Like how you support PurposeMed's hiring, planning, and forecasting, all that type of stuff too. Well, you've probably done more of it than you think because you run your own business.Our businesses, right?
• 5:52
  [laughs] So it's a little bit of everything, uh, people-related. So as a VP of People, I have some sub-teams under me. There's People Operations, which is, like, a specific sub-team.
• 6:02
  Uh, they handle all of your typical, like, HR admin, back-end, deal with any team or people...
• 6:10
  I don't wanna say issues, but, like, the people things that come up along the way, handle things like our leave and administration, payroll, all of that kind of stuff, and our total rewards program, all of that stuff that kinda, like, keeps things running behind the scenes.
• 6:22
  We have our Talent Enablement team, who is there to help support through, like, coaching, leadership development, t- training, onboarding, all of that. And then I have Talent Acquisition too.
• 6:34
  I think Talent Acquisition is the team that people, like, understand the most, and that's what we'll be talking about today, but they're the ones who are front-facing with our candidates, doing our hiring, bringing amazing people on, a- and then making sure that we find the right fit.
• 6:46
  I do also have IT under me, which is t- amazing people, um, but that's not as typical, I think, but they are amazing too 'cause they support us end to end, and so it's nice to kind of keep that within the team, and they are, um, helping us support our people.
• 6:58
  Okay, my first reaction is like, that's a big job. That's, like, a lot of responsibility. [laughs] Yeah, and then you add four... So my previous company, we had one brand.
• 7:05
  Thinkific was, like, one thing to serve our customers, our educators.
• 7:11
  Now we have three brands, plus actually one more I didn't mention, which is our pharmacy, and then you add on top of that, we have two geographies, so we're Canada and US now. Oh, wow. So very different.
• 7:20
  And so it is very, very different. Yeah. So we are overseeing all that stuff that I talked about.
• 7:26
  Um, so day-to-day, I'm supporting all of those teams in whatever kinds of ways that they need from, like, a leadership perspective to help get buy-in, to do approvals, to edit stu- like, I'm still, like, a major copy editor in my role.
• 7:39
  Actually it's, like, one of the biggest things [laughs] that I still do that's probably as closely marketing-related, um, and then some of our employer brand work.
• 7:46
  But, um, through that I'm just, you know, partnering with a lot of the other exec leaders for anything they need to do, uh, if we're talking strategically about building out their teams, what does that look like, um, if they need support in, I don't know, maybe, like, skills gaps that they have within their team, trying to bring people together.
• 8:01
  So I'm, like, I, I do a lot of, like, connecting and conversations more so than the actual, like, output of work- Yeah... sometimes, I think, and I think a lot of leaders would be able to relate to that.
• 8:12
  It gets weird when you get to that level. You're not as much, like, putting out documents and blog posts and all that kind of stuff. You're doing a lot more of the work behind the scenes.
• 8:20
  But I, I do a lot of that supporting work in the, the strategic side and work with the exec team on, you know, setting our company goals at an annual level, quarter level,
• 8:28
  how are we gonna, like, actually execute that, what people do we need to do it, how do we budget for that, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay, this is so interesting.
• 8:34
  It's just, like, something I frankly, like- Yeah... I just haven't spent a ton of time thinking about. It's really fascinating.
• 8:40
  And, you know, I reached out because th- this has come up in Superpath a million times, but I see it all over the place also.
• 8:47
  Like, you know, the folks in my, kinda, my circle are primarily content marketers, and getting hired seems to have become much more difficult, and there's a couple different factors here. Tell me if I'm on or off here.
• 9:00
  It seems like ZIRP era ends, there's a round of layoffs, not as many jobs have opened back up. There's AI, which I'm sure some companies are like, "Well, could we use AI instead of hiring?"
• 9:11
  There's another AI factor which, you know, when jobs open up, I wonder if AI makes it easier to apply, so more people do it.
• 9:19
  And I feel like the confluence of these factors, plus I'm sure others as well, makes it really hard to get hired.
• 9:24
  Is that more or less accurate, or is there more to that story that, like, we don't see from the other side? Yeah.
• 9:30
  I mean, I've experienced it through many different ways, like myself, my husband, my friends have been searching over the last few years, and then on the other side, we have been experiencing it too.
• 9:41
  So I have seen both sides, and it's not, like, a content or a marketing industry issue. It's every job.
• 9:47
  I think even if you think back at when I was doing really high volume hiring at Thinkific five or more years ago and we were looking for engineers, at that time, that was, like, the biggest thing.
• 9:58
  That was the hardest role to fill. Mm-hmm. Everybody was trying to compete for engineers. Every company was throwing perks on top of perks on top of perks to get people in.
• 10:07
  Um, and now I think, I mean, I, I know everybody's seen the effects of a lot of that spending in the last couple of years, and people have had to go the opposite way and make cuts or slow down hiring or just be a lot more thoughtful.
• 10:19
  But, like, yeah, how are they using technology maybe to account for some of that work instead of hiring bodies in seats. Uh, so it's not a... I wouldn't say it's, like, a one industry-related problem.
• 10:30
  Like, we see it at small startups. We see it at, you know, places like Microsoft, LinkedIn.
• 10:35
  Everyone's doing layoffs, and their numbers are in the hundreds or thousands versus smaller teams, uh, but it's happening to everybody. Yeah.
• 10:43
  You know, I saw Shopify, I guess somewhat famously now, the CEO Tobi issued this memo a few months ago, and it was about, like, Shopify's internal AI adoption, and one of the things in there was no new hiring unless you prove that AI can't do it, which I found to be really interesting 'cause Shopify's a huge company.
• 11:01
  You know, this is not, like, scrappy five-person startup trying to use AI because they can't afford to hire. Like, I assume Shopify could afford to hire.
• 11:08
  You know, as you look over the next couple of years, do you think that's gonna become more common, or do you think companies are gonna realize, like, "Oh, actually, like, let's continue to hire people," but they'll just have more capabilities, you know, rather than let's have fewer people, um, because AI will do the rest?
• 11:21
  Like, it seems... It's... I guess what I'm getting at, it seems a little shortsighted to me. Yeah. Both. [laughs] Yeah.
• 11:25
  I think it's gonna be both because I think from a cost perspective, if you think about a lot of the ways that technology companies run, their biggest cost center is usually headcount, right?
• 11:35
  That's what you're spending most of your money on, is the high salaries that you have to attract these high-talent people.
• 11:42
  So I think whenever you're looking to cut costs, everyone knows that costs in general for everything are rising. Mm-hmm.
• 11:48
  So wherever you can cut costs, I think that's just another line item that-CEOs that execs are looking at.
• 11:56
  I think it's one of the easiest ones for them to look at when they don't really know everything about AI and just say like, "Oh, AI can probably fix that."
• 12:03
  [laughs] I think that's like a common thing that people just kinda like jump on the latest trend without fully understanding or knowing what that means.
• 12:10
  Um, but they see it as probably like the quickest way of like if we cut head count by 50%, that's just such a huge amount of dollar savings that they can invest into maybe the technology that will get them more productivity with a lower amount.
• 12:24
  This is actually, like, a cou- this is probably, gosh, seven, eight years ago, I spent a year at Intuit. It- but they wouldn't make me an employee.
• 12:30
  I was a contractor, but that was, yeah, 40 hours a week wh- and what they told me was basically like, "It is impossible for us to get new head count, but we have budget. They're just different.
• 12:40
  Like, the money is allocated differently. So, like, we'll pay you the equivalent of a salary, and there's, like, a budget you'll have to work with and all this, but, like, sorry, this is just so much easier- Yeah...
• 12:49
  for us to do." And I found that to be just very enlightening.
• 12:51
  I think that's usually, like, if you're looking at higher growth companies, the reason they'll typically do that is from if they're looking for, like, outside investing or financing at some point because they'll see that.
• 13:01
  Like, a head count cost is a ongoing cost, whereas a contractor cost, in theory, you can cut off- Yeah... at any time.
• 13:08
  So they can just say like, "Well, we'll just turn the taps off on that if we need to from a- to handle it." But yeah, I agree. It's, uh- actually ends up usually costing you more [laughs] at the end.
• 13:17
  You know, this is interesting because, so Superpath runs a marketplace. Part of the reason Superpath runs a marketplace is because I was part of a marketplace. You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 13:25
  Like, I- there was a third party brokering the relationship between myself and Intuit, and they were taking a very nice fee for that. And I was like- Yeah...
• 13:33
  "Hey, maybe we should do that," you know, and we do it in a different context where we, like, source and vet freelance content folks for...
• 13:39
  But anyways, it's just a whole interesting world I didn't really know that much about and then participating in it. I was like, "This is, this is, like, kinda crazy."
• 13:45
  One other thing I wanted to ask you about was, okay, PurposeMed, so you put up a job ad. Yeah, you know, there, there's been a strategic decision made to add head count. Do you run through the process to do it?
• 13:54
  You put up a job ad. Are you being inundated with people, or is that... Like, that, I think that's what it feels like on the other side. Is that true internally? Yeah.
• 14:01
  So it might feel like there's not that many jobs out there, but on our back end, we're just, like, overwhelmed and sometimes with the amount of applications we have.
• 14:09
  And I think just going back to, like, companies being conscious of the head count, they're not necessarily scaling their recruiting teams back up because they've seen over the last couple years, they're like, "We had to cut them down," right?
• 14:20
  Mm-hmm. So we're still working with a very small team to, to handle very high application levels.
• 14:26
  And yeah, there's tons of highly qualified people out- applying still, but it is just, like, a super competitive market in general, I think, because there are fewer postings out there to begin with.
• 14:36
  So the ones that are up are getting all [laughs] of, all of the applications. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It... And I assume it has become easier to apply for jobs too because of AI.
• 14:45
  Like, using LinkedIn as an example, you could just click Apply. [laughs] That's basically it. Yes. The Easy Apply, that Easy Apply button is, like, a...
• 14:52
  I don't even know f- I don't think we have that turned on for ours, 'cause otherwise it would be a nightmare. Like, I've... Just our last role, we actually just hired a recruiter this week. Nice.
• 15:02
  And yeah, it was very exciting. But for that role alone, we had over, I think, 1,200 applications- Wow... over just, oh, a couple of weeks.
• 15:10
  Like, we turned it o- like, we got through our process and luckily found someone pretty quickly. But that's with only two of us going through resumes for the most part 'cause we had some vacations in between there.
• 15:20
  So that's like we're looking at every single resume and going through the process to schedule all the interviews, find spots and calendars for all the interviews- Wow...
• 15:29
  for the hiring managers, be in the interviews, um, do all of that prep work and everything around it.
• 15:35
  So each job takes up a lot more time than what I think people see, which is just the like, "Why can't you look at my resume and get back to me and give me feedback?" I'm like, "Well, there's a [laughs]
• 15:45
  1,000 of you on one job, plus we have six jobs, seven jobs open- Right... at a time potentially." Is it- Yeah... is it true?
• 15:51
  [laughs] Sorry, I feel like this is just, like, such an interesting opportunity to talk to a people ops leader, so I feel like some of these questions may be just- Yeah... totally elementary to you.
• 16:00
  [laughs] No, I'm not gonna hide anything. Ask me whatever you want. [laughs] You know, my goal, I don't wanna put you on the hot seat necessarily.
• 16:02
  I'm just, like, trying to, like, understand, to, to, like, help, you know, the content folks who listen to this podcast understand what the whole situation is like.
• 16:10
  You know, one thing I hear from people is like, "Oh, well, I applied for this job, but only because I knew someone who worked there, and they're gonna put in a good word for me." Does that matter?
• 16:16
  Like, d- does the good word end up in people ops, and, like, does that influence... But is... and maybe it's different at different companies, but, like- I was gonna say, yeah, it's different at different companies.
• 16:26
  The companies that I've worked at, the referral definitely gets you at least a faster look, I would say.
• 16:32
  Um, it's not gonna incre- if the team is going through the process and having, like, a fair process, I would say it doesn't necessarily influence the decision. But I would say it gets you seen faster- Got it...
• 16:43
  for m- the most part because they'll prioritize that, right?
• 16:46
  You wanna create an excellent experience for everybody, but especially if you have someone internally who's spending the time to talk to their referral to get them to apply, saying how great it is to work here, we are gonna prioritize at least looking at that resume and seeing how it goes from there.
• 16:59
  So people should do that if it's a legit connection and they're qualified and- I think so, yes, and that's the caveat I would say.
• 17:05
  Like, I know it's a lot of people just reach out just for the sake of it and say like, "Hey, can you refer me?"
• 17:10
  But I personally don't ever refer people unless I've worked closely with them and can speak to their work- Yeah... because it can be the opposite, right?
• 17:18
  You don't want it to reflect badly on you too if you put in a bad referral. You know, one thing I totally forgot to ask you about is remote and how that has changed hiring because- Mm...
• 17:25
  like, you've been doing this since pre-COVID and now post-COVID. Yeah, I forget about it. Yeah, like the hiring pool became global, which creates, I assume, a ton more competition. Like, is PurposeMed totally remote?
• 17:38
  Yeah, we are. So we were one of the companies who started during COVID. Got it. So we've always been remote, uh, which has been great 'cause that's just kind of built into our culture.
• 17:46
  We do have one office in Edmon- or in, I don't know, I almost said Edmonton, Calgary.
• 17:51
  But for the most part, our team's across Canada, and then we have a couple of people in the US, and as we're building out the US, some clinicians too.
• 17:58
  But yeah, we, there was a time in my life where we would do phone screens, then a video call, then an in-person-...
• 18:06
  actual interview and half of my interviews were done in person rather than through video That seems like so long ago. Like I remember like putting on a suit- Yeah. [laughs]...
• 18:14
  to go to an interview [laughs] like a very long time ago. It just seems like- Yeah... ancient now.
• 18:18
  How does that, the remote thing, kind of like the global talent pool affect salary in the way that y'all at PurposeMed think about how much to pay people?
• 18:27
  So the way that we specifically do it, uh, we did a version of this at Thinkific too. I'm not sure what they're doing now. But- Mm-hmm...
• 18:33
  we do a bit of like a blended average across Canada, and so we don't pay differently for geographies like within Canada. US is a different story 'cause we're just starting.
• 18:41
  We haven't really like built that out yet 'cause we're mostly doing hourly contractors.
• 18:46
  But we take like the high- kind of like the higher averages across our major cities like Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, and then try to find a band that kind of sits within that. From...
• 18:59
  I'd say from a pay perspective, I was more worried about it a few years ago, but just with the way the job market is now, it's less of an issue.
• 19:07
  When I was at Thinkific, like I was saying before, it was like the perks that tech companies were throwing at people, the like things that we had to do to catch up to the latest tech company just to stay on top from a salary perspective was very difficult [laughs] to keep up with.
• 19:24
  But now I think people are just like, "I want a job." It's not as big of a priority to have the highest paying salary.
• 19:30
  There's still people out there, but they're gonna target certain companies that they know are in that highest paying bracket, right?
• 19:36
  The way that we're operating, we're not necessarily in like the highest top of the market. We are, like we do invest a lot of our money back in to make sure that we can put that towards however to support our patients.
• 19:46
  But yeah, it, it hasn't been like negative, positive, kind of like more of a neutral for us. But for me, the biggest thing about remote is being able to hire talent- Yeah... anywhere and not be constrained to a location.
• 19:55
  Because on the flip side, I've talked to a lot of other companies who are hiring, and they're actually even trying to hire like heads of people, and they're wanting them to lead the change of back to work or back to office.
• 20:07
  Mm.
• 20:07
  So I know a lot of companies locally in Vancouver are trying to force people to go in three, four times a week, and you- they're having a hard time, I think, finding people on the people and culture side even to come and try to be the ones.
• 20:20
  They don't wanna be the ones responsible for that change when it's like the CEO's decision to drive all that, and they don't buy it necessarily. That's really interesting. I could see that would be a pretty tough sell.
• 20:28
  Like we've had a couple jobs be shared around our Slack community recently that are like really cool jobs that pay really well, and then when you read it, it's like New York only, office five days a week.
• 20:39
  [laughs] And nobody, nobody applies. Yeah. And some people still love that, but your pool gets so much smaller to the, like to find the people that really love that, right?
• 20:48
  [laughs] You know, I, I think one of the reasons that I sense people, especially in the content space, obviously 'cause that's what I know, feel frustrated about the current job market is because like we're coming off this like historically great job market.
• 21:01
  You know, like 2019 to 2022, like content marketers were getting paid. Like and it reflects in our- Yeah... we did this annual salary report. Like there was like significant leaps every year.
• 21:11
  People are getting paid really well, and now it's like, you know, for the first year this was, salary data was flat. You know? I don't know what's gonna happen when we run it next time.
• 21:19
  And so I think what people are trying to sort out is like is, was that normal or is this normal? Which one is it? Or is it just this is the natural ebb and flow of it?
• 21:28
  It's, I feel like it's hard to like step back and like look at the bigger picture when you're like, "I want a job, and I want a job soon." You know? Yeah. I don't know if there is a new normal for anything. Yeah.
• 21:37
  To be honest. [laughs] It's like we just have to keep constantly changing and adapting to whatever it is. Like we're...
• 21:43
  I know you had mentioned you wanted to talk a little bit about AI today too, and like that is the hottest topic that everyone is talking about, and how does that affect everything? So I don't know.
• 21:54
  Like you, you just have to kind of roll with it and come, whatever comes next is- Yeah, yeah. I'm almost nervous to ask you about AI.
• 22:01
  [laughs] Like in the content space, I feel like we've come to a better place with AI, where it was like- Yeah... first like skepticism and maybe a little bit of fear, and then like the way this has played out, you know.
• 22:13
  Certainly there were layoffs, and I'm sure some of that was not like people being directly replaced by AI, but more like CMOs being like, "Can we save a buck, and can AI do it?"
• 22:21
  And then it's like turns out, well, like not, not totally. Like maybe here and there, but like not really.
• 22:26
  You know, like now content marketers are finding all kinds of cool ways to use AI that expand their skillset- Mm-hmm... in really, I think, really exciting ways.
• 22:33
  So I feel like there's a more optimistic view of it right now. I guess, what is the sentiment around AI in your world right now? Yeah. We are...
• 22:40
  I actually just had a conversation about this in our team meeting about an hour ago. We were talking about like how are ways we can leverage it better ourselves, what are we worried about, like all of that kind of stuff.
• 22:50
  I'd say the thing I hate most about AI in talent acquisition specifically is the laziness that we see.
• 22:57
  [laughs] The amount of applications we get, out of that 1,000 I told you, you'll see probably 100 of them will be very obviously AI. Mm. And half of those will sometimes even leave the prompts in still.
• 23:12
  Like they are answering our application questions and not even taking a second to edit. And so that's the stuff where I'm like, you are wasting everyone's time here, and that's the kind of stuff that I don't like for AI.
• 23:24
  Personally, I love to use it for where I get stuck is like usually at the beginning of writing anything. Yeah. Right?
• 23:30
  I need kind of like a starter to get me going 'cause I, I have a lot of thoughts in my head, and I just need to get some kind of structure out. Mm. So I like it for that.
• 23:37
  Like I actually don't care if people use AI at all in their application or throughout the process, but I don't want it to like sound like they've used AI. Yeah. If that makes sense.
• 23:47
  Like if I heard after and they're like, "Yeah, I used AI," I'd be... If I had no idea, that'd be amazing if they use it in a constructive way.
• 23:55
  But if they're using it just to cut corners or like to mass apply and they don't even actually care, that's the kind of stuff that I, we are not fans of on our side.
• 24:03
  Because then, yeah, you're then taking away time from somebody else who is putting in the effort to apply.And I just, I don't think, that's not fair. Is AI useful when it comes to screening applications?
• 24:14
  Like, does it help you get from 1,000 to, uh, I don't know, I don't know, 10 really- Mm... good ones more quickly? So this is a funny one.
• 24:20
  I think for years and years people had these different myths of when they apply to a system, the ATS just, like, reads through everything, and then if it doesn't have the certain keywords, it's just gonna automatically throw stuff out.
• 24:31
  And I think there are companies that do that, right? I'm sure they've used certain A- E- application systems that do that. But I never personally have on my team.
• 24:40
  Still think this might change one day when AI's a little bit better, but I still think that if you're putting in the effort to apply that someone should actually review your resume.
• 24:49
  It is a feature that we do have in our ATS right now for it to help cut down time on resume screen, but we were just talking about how we're not sure if we trust it yet. Right.
• 24:57
  Because if it is just using certain keywords for that role, the way that we hire isn't always exactly, like, one-to-one, right? If you have this exact experience, then you for sure fit that job.
• 25:09
  The number of people that I've placed in jobs because I thought they looked interesting for whatever reason in their background or the way, the personality and the tone of, like, the way that they applied or the thoughtfulness that they put in and said, "Okay, you actually aren't maybe a fit for this role, but I have another role for you- Oh, yeah...
• 25:28
  that you didn't apply for or that's coming up," that's the kind of people that I'm worried that we'll miss out on.
• 25:35
  So I don't know if it's there yet for us, but I, I would not say I'm never gonna use it, 'cause I don't- Well, I feel like it's hard to say anything definitive about AI, because in three months it's gonna be totally different.
• 25:43
  [laughs] You know? But that makes sense. Yeah. We... One other thing and then I'll, I'll let you get back to your day. I know you have plenty going on, is AI fluency. I wanted to ask you about that.
• 25:50
  Does PurposeMed assess AI fluency? Is it important? Like, are you looking to hire people who are either early adopters or maybe at least, I guess I'll call them willing adopters?
• 26:02
  Like, like, is it becoming part of the expectations at PurposeMed that people would use AI in their work and therefore need to be assessed somehow during hiring? Yeah. I'd say it's not fully baked in yet, but we...
• 26:12
  It's a major topic within our executive team and everywhere, I think. We, at this point in time, I wouldn't say we expect anyone to be AI experts. Uh, we don't have any roles that are very AI-focused yet.
• 26:24
  Um, but we do really expect people to be super curious and adaptable to being able to use AI. We're starting to use it in our interviewing.
• 26:32
  I'd say it's probably gonna come up a lot more when we start opening up some more of our technical roles.
• 26:37
  But for us, as an example, just with a recruiter that we hired recently, one of the questions we were asking was kind of along the line you...
• 26:44
  how have you used AI to simplify or automate or enhance some of your day-to-day work?
• 26:49
  So being able to add pretty simple questions like that into any of the interview processes I think is nice to just see, yeah, A, is there a willingness to learn?
• 26:58
  B, maybe they already are proficient or they are using it really effectively. But it is... I don't think we can say that you can get away without it anymore. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Wade Foster, who's the CEO of Zapier,
• 27:12
  has been posting about this constantly on Twitter. Eh, sorry, this meaning, like, Zapier's internal AI adoption, and it's pretty interesting. Mm.
• 27:20
  He actually posted a chart of how they measure AI fluency across different functions within the company. Now granted, Zapier is basically an AI company at this point.
• 27:30
  Like, they are, like, automation, and now automation is almost synonymous with AI. Not quite, but very close. Like, they're tip of the spear and, you know, they're making this huge effort. Yeah.
• 27:39
  It was really interesting to see how they, like, specifically for marketing, like, what they consider to be, like, significant enough AI fluency to consider hiring someone, you know? But they laid it out pretty clear.
• 27:51
  Yeah.
• 27:51
  I'll try to remember to grab the link and put it in the show notes, because I guess depending on the company that you're applying for, there may be a greater or lesser need to be, like, incredibly fluent or just kinda, like, willing to adopt.
• 28:00
  Yeah, it makes a lot of sense for Zapier. Like, I've been using Zapier since the beginning of my career in marketing too when you couldn't...
• 28:07
  Automation was, uh, it was actually, like, a novel skill, I think, to be able to even use Zapier. Totally. A lot of people didn't [laughs] even know how to use it, and now it's, like, a given.
• 28:15
  So I'm sure that's where we'll get at some point. But yeah, no, it's very interesting. I think where we are a little more hesitant or just, like, more cautious is because we're dealing with healthcare.
• 28:27
  So when you incorporate AI into healthcare, there's a lot of things that we can do to help us automate things like charting and admin work and that kind of stuff, but, um, when it's actually delivering the health services, I think that's where we're gonna take quite a bit of time to make sure we're doing our- Yeah...
• 28:44
  due diligence with compliance in there, 'cause we don't wanna be messing that kind of stuff up. That makes a lot of sense. Is there anything else that you want [laughs] sort of the greater...
• 28:53
  The pool of people who are looking at jobs right now, is there anything else that I didn't ask you that you feel this, this group of folks should know? I don't... I just, like, I understand...
• 29:01
  I want people to know that if they don't hear back... Okay, well, actually, I'm, I have two sides. [laughs] I'm on the fence with this one.
• 29:07
  On one hand, I have always made my teams deliver an answer to candidates, no matter what, whether... We don't always include feedback. That might be later stage.
• 29:17
  But no matter what, they always hear from us to know if they're moving forward or not, and that's been something that's been really important to me as a leader in the people space, and just with hiring and knowing how much effort and time goes into applying for roles.
• 29:31
  But I just wanna, like, encourage people or remind people that it's not always personal when they don't get responses, and that some companies might not have the resources, um, they might not have...
• 29:42
  be far enough along in having all the processes or structures in place to be able to do it. There are so many factors that have nothing to do with you, but... and I know it, like, hurts to not get a response back.
• 29:52
  I wouldn't say... I don't think it's the right thing to do.
• 29:55
  I still think everyone sh- still deserves a response, but I do try to have a little bit of empathy for some of those hiring teams who might be so underwater they might not have enough time or the chance or...
• 30:05
  To be honest, it's happened to me. I think about it, I'll be, like, two weeks later and be like, "Oh, no, I didn't reply to that one email." And then, and sometimes it just, you know...
• 30:13
  If you have that problem in your day-to-day life, [laughs] you're probably gonna have it on the hiring side too. But yeah, we care a lot. We really want people to be placed in those roles. We see you.
• 30:23
  We just know that it's a really tough market out there for everybody. Tia, thank you so much for coming.
• 30:28
  This, this is, uh, totally different than the normal podcast we do, and it, it's very enlightening to hear what your life is like and the way that you're thinking about this, so thank you very much for your time.
• 30:37
  This is usually the spot where we ask people to promote something, because we usually have marketing folks on.
• 30:41
  [laughs] So if there's anything you wanna promote, anywhere we can send people, or if you're hiring, we'll send people there. Yes. I mean, yeah, we are hiring right now.
• 30:49
  We're actually gonna be hiring a couple of marketing roles coming up, so this is maybe really great timing. Uh, so you can go to our website at purposemed.com/careers and, uh, see what we have open there.
• 30:59
  And then we also have a space to apply for future openings if nothing is interesting at the moment.
• 31:04
  We'll have a link to that in the show notes so people can go check it out there, stay in touch, um, look for those marketing roles. And yeah, thanks again, Tia, seriously appreciate you.
• 31:12
  I think I speak for everyone listening that it's been awesome, so thank you so much. Thank you for having me. [outro music]