Highlights from day one at SmartRecruiters’ annual EU conference on all things recruitment.

In the heart of Amsterdam, along the Kloveniersburgwal canal, lies the Compagnietheater— a former Lutheran church that now serves as an event location. The Baroque-era venue still lends itself to mass congregation, albeit it under different circumstances, and it’s here that talent acquisition executives, thought leaders, technologists, and investors from 31 countries have gathered to discuss the state of the recruitment industry, as well as the shape of things to come. 

Over four hundred attendees from across the world have come to the Dutch capital to network, participate in workshops, view product demos, and attend lectures from a diverse cross-section of industry experts. The venue is outfitted by accessibility experts to accommodate guests of any visible and invisible disability, including translators and a sign language-encouraged coffee bar! A key ingredient of Hiring Success conferences, the sessions touch on a variety of workplace-related topics that are significant for talent acquisition professionals. Topics range from the latest technology & process innovations to diversity & inclusion, and—of course—Hiring Success.

It would be impossible to account for the total Hiring Success EU experience in a blog post. That’s a pleasure reserved for attendees. However, here are a few highlights from day one. And to those who couldn’t join us this year, we hope to greet you in person in 2020.

Hiring Is Success — Kickoff with Jerome Ternynck, Founder & CEO of SmartRecruiters

The CEO of SmartRecruiters, Jerome Ternynck—affectionately known as the chief Smartian—set the Hiring Success festivities into motion on a personal note. 

“Some people believe their calling is to cure illness, for others it’s to find a way to get to the moon—for me, I’ve always believed that my calling is to help connect people to jobs at scale,” he announced to an audience of over four hundred talent acquisition practitioners and professionals. And, as anyone with recruiting experience knows, that’s no small feat.

The modern labor market is multi-faceted and more complex than ever. Among other things, globalization, remote work, the rise of the gig economy, and an increased demand for highly-skilled workers have made it increasingly difficult for recruiters and the companies that they work for to source the talent they need to succeed. This is a daunting reality not only for Ternynck, but the majority of executives. 

According to Ternynck, 77 percent of CEOs see hiring for key skills as the biggest threat to their businesses, and 82 percent of Fortune 500 companies don’t believe they’re in a position to recruit highly talented candidates. Given that by 2030, there will be a global human talent shortage of more than 85 million people, it’s not hard to see why this sentiment is so common among executives.

What, then, is the solution for this discrepancy in workforce supply and demand? For Ternynck, the answer to that question is clear: applying the guiding principles of Hiring Success to talent acquisition. In a nutshell, that’s accomplished by doing the following: 

1. Take a holistic approach to the hiring experience by providing an engaging candidate experience, ensuring that hiring managers are engaged during the process, and having a team of highly productive recruiters.
2. Ditching outdated hiring metrics like Cost-per-Hire and Time-to-Fill for more useful analytics like Hiring Budget, Hiring Velocity, and Net Hiring Score.
3. Treat talent acquisition as if it were a function of sales and marketing. Candidates should be treated like customers. 

In closing, SmartRecruiters’ CEO implored guests to take a non-traditional approach to connecting candidates to jobs by giving back and participating in Reverse Recruiting. Now adopted by over 50 major companies including Tesla, Twitter, and Visa, Reverse Recruiting is a program in which organizations help overlooked and/or marginalized jobseekers find employment. 

Select sessions included:

The Open Hiring Revolution 

For many job seekers, there’s one unfortunate obstacle that stands between them and their ability to secure employment: bias. For some, like former convicts, this bias is systemic and concretely difficult to circumnavigate. For others, it’s more subtle and harder to identify. An example would be victims of ageism or disablism. No matter the source of the bias, it excludes from the workforce countless individuals across the globe that are well-qualified and well-intentioned. 

This is an unnecessary loss for all parties involved.

Fortunately, there are a few progressive-minded companies and foundations that have taken it upon themselves to directly challenge this injustice by championing a concept known as Open Hiring, the belief that people should be allowed to decide if they’re able to perform a job—not someone else’s bias. 

Ingeborg Zwolsman, Program Manager for the Start Foundation, made a persuasive case for the movement in her morning session “The Open Hiring Revolution.” The Start Foundation, an independent venture philanthropy fund based in Amsterdam, partners with local businesses that are willing to give jobs to candidates that are traditionally overlooked. The only prerequisite for employment is a willingness to work. There are no interviews, screening questions, or other such hurdles.

The Start Foundation takes their inspiration from Greyston Bakery, an American non-profit that pioneered the concept of Open Hiring to create over 3,500 jobs and pay out over $65 million in salaries to employees that previously struggled to find work. Greyston Bakery was thrust into the public eye after Ben & Jerry’s, impressed with their mission, decided to source the brownies for their ice cream from the non-profit.

Let’s Debate the Future of Work 

As SmartRecruiters’ CEO Jerome Ternynck mentioned in his opening statement, the labor market is now more complex than ever. Phenomena like automation and a spike in the gig economy have complicated our traditional notions of the workplace. How recruiters and employers adapt and prepare for similar changes in the future is a point of contention. 

To gather insight into the future of work, we invited Karen Rivoire (IKEA) and Kevin Wheeler  (The Future of Talent) to an Oxford Union-style debate hosted by Hung Lee, co-founder and CEO of Workshape.io. Rivoire and Wheeler both ran global TA and HR organizations, and have dealt firsthand with the aforementioned issues at scale. 

Prompts for the debate were fielded from the audience, three of which were shortlisted: 

1. Will the gig economy become the primary workforce of the future? 
2. Will recruiting be fully automated? 
3. Is workforce planning a complete waste of time?

The questions, voted upon by the audience, seemed to convey a collective sense of unease about the ever-changing nature of the labor market and the implications that has for the recruiting industry as a whole.

Rivoire seemed to share the audience’s apprehension and called for a tempered, cautious response to transformations in the workplace, particularly with concern to automation and artificial intelligence. Wheeler, on the other hand, unflinchingly argued in favor of adopting technologies like AI to counter human bias. Though they held contradictory opinions, both participants comported themselves judiciously and in a manner befitting of democratic, spirited debate.

Though the debate was cut short due to scheduling constraints, it underscored the complexity of issues that talent acquisition professionals encounter and, consequently, why it’s essential for employers to invest in highly skilled recruiters.

Attaining Hiring Success

If Ternynck justified why Hiring Success must be a top priority for today’s business leaders, then Rebecca Carr, SVP of Success at SmartRecruiters, painted a clear path for attendees on how they can attain it. Armed with a methodology consisting of business assessments, maturity model frameworks and pillars of investment areas, Carr outlined how talent acquisition leaders can evaluate, strategize, execute, and finally optimize current processes and skillsets to level up in performance across:

• Talent attraction & engagement
• Collaboration & selection
• Management & operating model

Using candidate sourcing as a sub-topic under the talent attraction & engagement pillar, Carr floated sample business assessment questions and live-polled the audience to calculate their maturity levels. It was a fitting way to wrap up day one, connecting the dots on how to invest in various areas of talent acquisition in order to drive business outcomes while connecting people to jobs at scale.

Check back tomorrow for a recap of day two at #hireEU 2019, and join the conversation on Twitter and LinkedIn Live.

Cramped hotel conference rooms and uncomfortable chairs are the banes of many recruiting conferences, but here’s how SmartRecruiters is flipping the script on the traditional industry events.

What was the last conference that truly excited you? What made it unique—the sessions, the networking, the food? Did it have a unique structure, or did it follow the traditional format of sit, listen, stand up, talk? More often than not, industry conferences fall into the latter category, where most event attendees inch towards the closest exit first chance they get. No one is a fan of stuffy conferences, and that’s why SmartRecruiters seeks to redefine the experience for talent acquisition professionals everywhere. 

Hiring Success EU isn’t designed to test your passive listening skills; in fact, participation is encouraged. Every session is designed to be interactive, giving audiences the opportunity to absorb insightful content in a refreshingly new way. In addition to the speaker-led sessions, there are countless workshops and round table discussions where TA and HR leaders can roll up their sleeves and learn as a group. 

The recruiting community is unique for its focus on shared knowledge. We are constantly working together to share ideas, perspectives, and best practices on talent acquisition so that every organization can build better hiring processes that attract the best talent possible. SmartRecruiters feels this approach is necessary to create both a memorable experience and make a lasting impact on how people think about recruiting. 

Hiring Success EU kicks off September 10-11 in Amsterdam, and here is a sampling of what attendees can expect at this non-traditional conference:

1. Reverse Recruiting
Reverse Recruiting is our way of taking action to connect overlooked candidates to jobs at scale. At this year’s Hiring Success EU, 300 interviews will simultaneously take place between audience members and hopeful job seekers, including formerly incarcerated individuals, refugees, transgender people, people with disabilities, and more. These impromptu interviews offer them a chance to practice their interview skills, make connections with current TA professionals, and boost their self-confidence in finding gainful employment. This-meet-and-greet-format will create new bridges of friendship, mentorship, and jobs between our communities. Isn’t that what recruiting is all about?

2. The Hackathon
Twenty technologists invested countless hours over the last few months to create unique hacks and APIs built on the SmartRecruiters platform. Now, these innovators can demo their builds in real-time at the conference. Here’s the catch: Every attendee starts with 1000 “wow points” to invest in the teams they believe have the greatest impact on the future of recruiting technology. The top 3 teams that receive the most investment will be sent to the final round to battle it out for fortune—$10k in sponsorship at Hiring Success 20—and glory.

3. Session: Make your Organization a Microcosm of the World
One of the best-kept secrets in recruiting is the extra-ordinary output of neurodiverse people. Many of us are neuro-diverse—we just don’t know it.  Sara-Jane Harvey, aka Agony Autie, is a world-class activist for neurodiversity and returning Hiring Success speaker, having debuted at Hiring Success Americas earlier this year. Now, she’s back to expose truths about how making offices accessible for autistic people have far-reaching benefits for companies, employees, and the potential to transform the world economy.

4. Session: Reflecting Freedom
Self-imposed limitations are created when our choices and actions are dictated by automatic responses and unquestioning beliefs. Understand these limitations and find freedom from the prison of the mind. This session will take attendees through an inspiring journey of grit, and who better than to tell it than Khalil Osiris, who spent 20 years in prison. During his time in incarceration, he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Boston University. Khalil is now an author, educator, social activist, and CEO of Reflecting Freedom, a social enterprise company. 

5. Session: Getting Smarter
What will your hiring mix look like in 10 years? Get this question right and you’ll see your stock soar. Get it wrong, and you’ll spend your time playing catch up. This session will bring a much-needed perspective from the navigation technology and consumer electronics company TomTom on how it discovered the ideal hiring mix. This session is presented by Thomas Waldman, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at TomTom, leveraging his 20 +years of experience in recruiting and sourcing to discuss how TomTom conducted its own internal discovery and transformation.  

6. Session: Becoming an Inclusive Leader
What does an aikido master and the first ordained African-American meditation master, who also advises Fortune 50 CEOs have to teach company leaders? Find out in this participatory session that is sure to strengthen everyone’s leadership skills. Dr. Steven Jones, who—among numerous accomplishments and accolades—is the CEO of JONES, a consulting firm specialized in diversity and organizational effectiveness, teaching the value of inclusive leadership.

Don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of this one-of-a-kind recruiting conference. Where else can you make a positive impact on someone’s life, flex your entrepreneurial muscle like a VC, or learn from a curated selection of activists, speakers, and TA leaders from around the globe? You will find it all here at Hiring Success EU. To find out more about what to expect, visit our website and secure your tickets before September 10th—see you there!

A venue trapped in time, surprise artistic performances, and limitless cheese options—these are only some of the wonders you can expect in Amsterdam.

Hidden behind the glitz and glamor of the Dutch capital’s inner city lies a narrow street that feels worlds apart from the shiny Rokin and Dam squares, despite running parallel to them. On a normal night, walking down this passage—called “The Nes”—requires jockeying for position between pedestrians and passing cyclists. You might feel as if you’ve been transported to the early 1900s with all the stone architecture, cozy houses, and theaters luring you closer with the promise of music and drink.

On this particular night, however, you will be surprised to find a red carpet juxtaposed with urban sprawl, inviting you to walk inside, past a giant wooden door. Passing through the looming edifice with the words “Tobacco Theater” etched overhead, you will find SmartRecrutiers’ flagship afterparty, the can’t-miss event of our Hiring Success conferences. This year’s celebration—made possible by Xref, our official party sponsors—is no exception.

Network with your peers, cocktails in hand, as you explore this centuries-old tobacco auction house that now plays host to one of Amsterdam’s biggest music events: the Red light Jazz Festival. Discover hidden corners throughout the building, engage with Hiring Success speakers, and bounce from one entertaining performance to the next. Of course, don’t forget to indulge yourself at the cheese stations and take in the sounds of the live band, bringing the atmosphere of Amsterdam’s street life into the theater for one special night thanks to our partners at Xref.  

You’d be hard-pressed to experience the ambiance of Amsterdam in a more historic space. So while you’re there, seize the opportunity to make new connections and digest the day’s learnings. The venue’s art-meets-business vibe, delicious food, and inspiring company are guaranteed to recharge you for another nonstop day of demos, panels, labs, awards, and interactive sessions.

Still haven’t secured your ticket for the industry’s coolest afterparty? Head over to the Hiring Success EU website and we’ll see you in Amsterdam!

With experiences that span across cultural borders and industries, here are the inspirational talent acquisition leaders speaking at Hiring Success EU you cannot miss.

Hiring Success is on the move again, this time heading to Amsterdam’s picturesque canals for two days of thought leadership, inspiration, and professional networking. Along with hundreds of TA leaders from global brands like Heineken, LinkedIn, and Facebook, dozens of dynamic speakers will join SmartRecruiters for the next installment of Hiring Success Europe. 

Occupying the majestic Compagnietheater from September 10-11, Hiring Success EU will showcase over 40 sessions led by more than 50 speakers who will help define the future of recruiting. Their tracks include discussions around innovation, diversity & inclusion, and Hiring Success. Conference attendees can customize their own learning path by choosing which sessions align with their interests and professional goals.

The speakers are a hallmark of every Hiring Success conference, and this year SmartRecruiters is excited to announce the following presenters who will make their debut appearances on the Hiring Success EU stage in Amsterdam.

1. Dr. Makaziwe Mandela, House of Mandela

Born and raised in Johannesburg, Dr. Makaziwe (Maki) is the eldest daughter of Evelyn Mase and Nelson Mandela. Maki earned a bachelors in Social Work and an honors degree in Sociology. Through a Fulbright Fellowship, Maki obtained a masters in Sociology and a doctorate in Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Mandela has written several publications on the role of women in a changing South Africa, as well as developed investment portfolios designed to uplift and economically empower women. Maki was also a director at Nestlé and the GM of Human Resources at Spoornet. Dr. Mandela currently serves as the Chairperson of the House of Mandela and sits on numerous boards.

2. Tukwini Mandela, House of Mandela

Raised by her grandmother in Cape Town until the age of 10, Tukwini is the granddaughter of Nelson Mandela. Having lived in the United States and South Africa, she has extensive education in Social Work as well as professional experience in advertising at Leo Burnett and Foote, Cone & Belding. Ms. Mandela’s expertise expanded to communications at First National Bank and marketing at several multinational institutions. Tukwini is currently the Marketing Director for House of Mandela.

3. Tim Ackermann, LIDL

Tim is an international and multi-industry HR leader with nearly 20 years’ expertise in talent acquisition and talent management. At LIDL he connected great people with one of the world’s largest retailers and created an engaging candidate & employee experience throughout the employee life cycle. Tim also has his own side hustle, which he now runs full-time, as the founder & managing director of a day spa and concept store in Potsdam, Germany.

During Hiring Success EU, Tim will lead discussions with other TA professionals as they share engaging and funny stories on how to be an entrepreneur within your own company.

4. Maarten Bokhoven, ABN AMRO

Maarten’s personal mission statement is to move people and make people move. He is passionate about driving business results, as well as helping team members achieve their personal and professional ambitions.

Maarten has exemplified this approach through his 20+ years of experience in marketing and communications for global brands such as Brunel and, most recently, as Head of Employer Branding, Sourcing & Community Management at ABN AMRO Bank. He brings a unique perspective to employer branding, having transitioned from content marketing for consumers to brand proposition for candidates. He is passionate about projects that create brand awareness and engagement but also drive conversion and deliver results.

5. Noor van Boven, N26

Noor is the Chief People Officer at N26, Europe’s first mobile banking service and one of few startup unicorns. However, this isn’t her first foray into the digital sector; Noor also spent several years as the VP Global Head of People at Spotify and even co-founded Hello, an online community designed to connect dynamic, professional women around the world. Noor is a leading example of the next generation of talent acquisition leaders, and during her session, she will share her experiences navigating hiring challenges for a company undergoing hyper-growth.

6. Anna Brandt, Uber

Anna is the Global Head of Talent Acquisition and Community Operations at Uber, a position she serves through her consultancy, Brandt Talent Solutions.  Anna enables organizations to scale their talent acquisition efforts in order to hire and retain the best talent available. She now focuses on Talent Acquisition Program Design & (interim) Management. At Hiring Success EU, Anna will join Noor van Boven in sharing her first-hand experience establishing hiring practices at Uber, as well as how to steer organizations through dramatic growth cycles.

7. Ben Clark, Heineken

Ben leads the Global Talent Acquisition function at Heineken and is proud to represent his organization’s home turf by speaking at Hiring Success EU. At Heineken, Ben established the company’s first-ever talent sourcing hub in Central and Eastern Europe. He also played a critical role in expanding Heineken’s highly publicized employer branding and global implementation of new recruiting technology. For his sessions, Ben will speak about what it’s like working for a well-loved and recognized global brand alongside SmartRecruiter’s Marketing Director, Prachi Gore. 

8. Michael Falkner, Ramboll

Michael spent the past 18 years hunting for the right match. Today, he is an experienced Talent Acquisition leader with an unusual background as a former Detective with the Copenhagen National Police. His drive to seek out people didn’t stop after he turned in his badge, so he launched a career searching for talented professionals.

Michael has extensive recruiting experience from Laigaard & Partners, Hays, Accenture, and most recently, Ramboll. As the current Head of Global Talent Acquisition at Ramboll, Michael is responsible for overseeing recruiting activities across 35 countries and the organization’s Center of Excellence, Operations, Talent Sourcing Hub, Offshoring and Employer Branding.

September is fast approaching, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to see these stellar speakers in Amsterdam. Stay tuned as we continue to publish speaker profiles, tease our flagship party, and more. To find out more about what to expect at Hiring Success EU, visit our website and secure your tickets for the recruiting industry’s most anticipated annual event here.

Talent Acquisition leaders flock to Amsterdam for the second annual European event, here’s why!

Hiring Success EU returns, this time in Amsterdam. Over 350 attendees will join SmartRecruiters to define the future of recruiting September 10-11, 2019 canal-side at the Compagnietheater.

During two days of interactive sessions and networking, conference-goers will explore topical issues in recruiting with 80 expert speakers from top tier brands like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Twitter. With three stages and 30 sessions, attendees are sure to find the content they need to achieve hiring success.

“Hiring Success is a superb event series. It’s so good, it’s become a movement,” says Hung Lee, CEO at WorkShape.io and Curator of Recruiting Brainfood. “Think: hiring best practice, cool product updates, a clear theme of diversity and inclusion, and a great community of Talent Acquisition folks. I don’t exaggerate – it’s a life-affirming event.”

But don’t just take Hung’s word for it, here are 8 of the best reasons why HSEU is the must-attend recruiting event this year.

Check out the full agenda here and make sure to take advantage of early bird pricing until June 14th!

1. Exceptional Speakers

The Hiring Success Conference is all about the amazing speakers who inspire and inform. Last year, Hiring Success EU – Berlin was lucky enough to welcome leading practitioners like James Purvis (Head of HR, CERN), Sanam Moayedi-Stummer (HR Director & Program Lead, Coca-Cola European Partners, and Elke Jorens (Director of Talent Acquisition, EMEA Microsoft).

2. Network with industry leaders.

With TA leaders, analysts, hiring practitioners, and industry thought leaders in attendance, conference-goers have the opportunity to make meaningful connections. Networking is an important dimension to any in-person event, which is why every Hiring Success Conference features a Smarty Party where everyone can relax, discuss learnings, and meet new people. Last year, attendees enjoyed a night at one of Berlin’s top night clubs, complete with a marching band and ariel acrobats.

3. Three topical tracks to guide your learning adventure.

The Hiring Success Conference is built around three proven tracks to meet practitioners at their point of need:

Innovation. Understand the latest recruiting tech and see how these digital tools will actually affect you and your practice.

Diversity & Inclusion. Stories of success and inspiration from hiring practitioners that will help you create the business case for a diverse workforce and inclusive work culture.

Hiring Success. The case studies and hiring hacks from practitioners who have #BeenThere and know your pain points.

4. Explore the latest diversity and inclusion initiatives.

A new topic experts will discuss this year is ‘candidates with resume gaps’. Whether the sabbatical was to travel the world, care for a loved one, raise children, return to school, or heal from an illness, applicants shouldn’t be dismissed as ‘irrelevant’ upon their return to the workforce. In this interactive session, recruiters will learn strategies for successful workforce reintegration.

5. Dive into the best practices of tomorrow.

The Hiring Success Conference is a great chance to get out of the company silo and learn from other practitioners; this is especially the case with analytics. When starting a people analytics program, it’s hard to benchmark data without anything for comparison. Ever wonder how effective posting jobs vs events vs referrals vs database sourcing is at attracting top talent? All these questions will be answered in a participatory session, and everyone will walk away with a sourcing-spend plan.

6. Stay abreast of innovation in recruiting tech.

The Hiring Success Hackathon makes its European debut at the Amsterdam conference. Teams will have 24 hours to produce an original add-on to the SmartRecruiters platform and attendees will vote to decide the winner.

At Hiring Success19 – San Francisco Optimizely swept gold with an app that solved for task completion lag time, but who knows what imaginative hack will impress in Amsterdam?

7. Location, location, location.

Jerome Ternynck, CEO and Founder of SmartRecrutiers put it best when he said: “Amsterdam speaks to the future of recruiting. This lively city is on the avant-garde of tech adoption, where global talent flocks, and people-centric innovation abounds.”

8. See Winston dance again!

Who can resist Winston’s killer dance moves?  SmartRecruiters’ very own Smartian is (without doubt or prejudice) one of the greatest mascots of all time.

via GIPHY

After the whirlwind that was our first European Hiring Success Conference, let’s take some time to smell the proverbial roses.

When you left your hotel to join us for the second day of #HIRE18 EU did you think that in a few hours you would be part of a band of 300 people, playing maracas? Likely, not. Yet, at 2 p.m. there you were – holding a shaker that looked like an apple, holding down the rhythm you’d learned only moments before, and killing it!

When an industry comes together in person, amazing things can happen. We learn, solve problems, push our comfort zones, and maybe even discover hidden musical talents, but it’s kind of a blur by the end. That’s why today, as we all journey back to our day-to-day grind we wanted to remind you of four moments, that challenged, surprised, delighted, and inspired!

When we learned two strategies for defeating our unconscious biases.

Diversity and inclusion specialists Natalie Mellin and Joanne Lockwood turned a figurative mirror on the audience in a session entitled “A Path to Gender Parity,” asking everyone to think about how our inherent prejudice affects how we approach people and situations at work.

“If you think about it, 99.96 percent of our decision-making process is unconscious,” says Mellin. “Yes,” Lockwood agrees. “It’s a very reptilian part of our brain.”

But we aren’t without hope, two strategies these experts recommend can help you bring your unconscious decision-making process into the light. The first is to flip the situation. If you are having a negative reaction to someone, ask yourself: “Would I feel this way if this person was a different gender, or a different age etc?”. The second is to move slow. Take the time to write down three reasons every time you make a personal decision (good or bad), if you can’t think of three, that choice is probably a result of unconscious bias.

Equality isn’t treating everyone the same. It’s giving everyone the tools they need to succeed. Amazing stuff #hire18 pic.twitter.com/aCZyr16sQW

— Kasia Borowicz (@kmborowicz) September 20, 2018

When recruiters hacked Tinder to find programmers.

In Germany they like to call it “convincing existing algorithms,” but for the rest of the world, it’s known simply as hacking. Recruiting maverick, Robindro Ullah recounts how his team banded together to reverse engineer the algorithm of tinder to fill programming positions. What they found was that the dating app connected to Facebook to glean interests and surface dating matches, so they began building the perfect profile to find the candidates they were after. The cherry? A picture of Ada Lovelace, the mother of programming, as the profile pic. The one question this author has about the experiment is, was the search confined to men seeking women?

Painiting of Ada Lovelace as a recruiting tool? This and other crazy ideas presented by @Robindro #HIRE18 pic.twitter.com/5c66BG7gyU

— Piotr Podolski (@pyortp) September 19, 2018

When we discovered what it means to listen by making music.

M. Baha, a professional percussionist and founder of Solution Folder lead the entire contingency of the Hiring Success Conference in an unexpected journey to inclusion and empathy through music. This instrumental jam session began with the dissemination of shakers, bells, rhythm sticks, and drums until everyone in the audience had a noisemaker of some kind. Instruments in hand, Baha lead the group in layered rhythms that helped each person actively listen. The result? A bonding experience and a lesson in vulnerability.

Explain this without context! #hire18 pic.twitter.com/fSMotlMvjN

— Falko Pleß (@f_pless) September 20, 2018

When we heard first-hand the struggle to find employment as a refugee.

When Nebras Khiata was forced to flee his home and job in Aleppo, he struggled to find a job in Germany despite his advanced degree in finance, years of experience, and command of English. Even international companies required German applications and cover letters, and government job placement programs pushed him towards employment outside his sector – as a postman or security guard.

Khiata eventually found work in his field, as an analyst for Deutsche Bank, but it took years. Now his employer, and other major companies are initiating programs to help refugees, like him, find a place in the labor market – faster – through mentorship that demystifies the unique employment culture of Germany.

Through copious data collection and analysis from experts at Humboldt University a surprising fact emerges: opportunities do exist for refugees, but they are often hard to find. One of the best things an employer can do is to make their applications mobile-friendly, and do away with cover letters and/or accept cover letters in English.

Personal, #HiringSuccess story of the syrian refugee. Great insight into struggles of refugees #HIRE18 pic.twitter.com/iPyB6q0XWr

— Piotr Podolski (@pyortp) September 19, 2018

When Enboarder took the trophy for the Recruiting Startup Awards

One-hundred companies joined the recruiting startup award in hopes of taking home the grand prize of 9,000 euros in media-spend, including a gold sponsorship to the next Hiring Success Conference and an article from Business Insider. From the many, five emerged as the top finalists who, propelled by the voting support of their networks, came to pitch it out live at Hiring Success 18 EU – Berlin Edition.

Enboarder distinguished itself as the only onboarding solution among the pack. This workflow management tool helps companies introduce new employees into their work culture and practices, and alerts department heads to potential flight risks. The user-friendly UX, and customized notification system, where you get to choose the medium of message delivery text/email/slack, make enboarder a true delight.

Check out Enboarder in the SmartRecruiters marketplace.

We were at @SmartRecruiters #HIRE18 and pitched as a finalist for the Recruiting Startup Award…and we won! Awesome work, Steve!
Watch our pitch here: https://t.co/CN9uAnBGVU (it starts at the 31:04 mark). pic.twitter.com/S8DFFYPdin

— Enboarder (@Enboarder) September 21, 2018

It’s the hottest HR topic not directly related to tech. But to achieve true diversity and inclusion at work we must overcome pesky traits like unconscious bias, and to assure that reality, there is Natalie Mellin.

Natalie Mellin has gained experience from innovative tech companies like Spotify and King, and has played a central role in creating workplace awareness around diversity and inclusion over the last decade. She is one of the pioneers who helped reshape the conversation, and behavioral science inspires everything she does. With cross-functional research, she creates practical tools like process nudges and strategies to help both individuals and organizations make an impact.

With her vast experience from working both in-house and as well as consultancy, she is known as an influencer, dynamic speaker and we are honored to welcome her to Hiring Success 18 Europe in Berlin, September 19-21.

What does hiring success mean to you?

We need to change our hiring structures and processes to make better hires, which in the end, creates better and more sustainable business success. For me, this means identifying where you have the most bias in your process, redesign the steps to mitigate this, and cultivate diversity and inclusion.

How have attitudes towards diversity and inclusion changed over the last while?

Despite years of diversity training and anti-discrimination policies, one could argue we’ve not come very far. In fact, the World Economic Forum reports that the gender gap is widening in their 2017 report. McKinsey’s also reports in their 2017 Women in the Workplace study, that women represent only 18 percent of all c-suite roles. That number compares to 12 percent for men of color and only 3 percent for women of color. This is despite the fact that McKinsey’s 2018 report, ‘Delivering through Diversity’ reinforced the link between diversity and positive company financial performance.

Our brain gets hit by 11 million signals at any given moment in time. But we can only consciously process 40 of those. This means a tremendous amount of signals get processed using prior knowledge and patterns. This is unconscious bias. We need to focus on nudging our unconscious minds to mitigate more of the racist, sexist, and such behavior, and I believe we can do that through behavioral economics. Another way of saying it, my view has changed in the terms that I no longer believe we can train away our bias. We need to design it away.

What do you tell companies the biggest advantage of diversion and inclusivity are?

Besides the fact that it’s the right thing to do, it makes business sense.

1. Driving business success and profits – a McKinsey report on public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 33 percent more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 21 percent more likely to have returns above the industry mean.
2. Drive innovation – Leaders who give diverse voices equal airtime are nearly twice as likely as others to unleash value-driving insights, and employees in a ‘speak up’ culture are 3.5 times as likely to contribute their full innovative potential. HBR
3. Understanding our consumers and essentially making us smarter – In recent years a body of research has revealed another, more nuanced benefit of workplace diversity: non-homogenous teams are simply smarter. Working with people who are different than you challenges your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking, which sharpens performance.

What kind of resistance do you get from organizations, and what do you do to get on board?

Nowadays it’s mostly about ‘how’. Something I completely understand, but we have years and years of research showing that diversity is correlated with both profitability and added value. Even so, for some companies or some executives, even the most compelling data seems to require additional rounds of convincing. Probably shouldn’t surprise me either. after all, research has proven facts and data don’t actually change people’s minds. But I found this quote the other day and thought it was quite good.

‘The house burned in front of them but they wanted the data to prove it. That is the audacity and ridiculousness of making the business case: convincing one of the obvious. If the smoke doesn’t alarm you, the fire certainly should.’ – Bernard Coleman III

What are behavioral economics?

I will again borrow the words of a much wiser person; “…the best way to think about behavioral economics is in contrast to standard economics. In standard economics, we think — we assume — that people are perfectly rational, which means that they always behave in the best way for them. They can compute everything, they can calculate everything and they can make, always, consistently, the right decisions. In contrast, behavioral economics doesn’t assume much about people. Instead of starting from the idea that people are perfectly rational, we say we just don’t know, but let’s check it out. So, what we do is we put people in different situations to check how they actually make decisions. And what we find in those experiments is that people often don’t behave as you would expect from a perfectly rational perspective. So, in essence, it’s an empirical and non-idealistic way to start looking at human behavior. And because we find that people behave differently than expected, often irrationally, it also leads often to different conclusions about how companies should be created, what the government should do, and, of course, what individuals should be doing.”  – Dan Ariely

Was there a eureka moment that made you want to address diversity and inclusion full-time? How did that happen?

Well, my mom tells me that I was questioning gender equality as a young kid. Then I took gender studies at university. This was an eye-opener in many ways. I found out about intersectionality, that we are more than one thing and that the power structure today will hand me a completely different experience as a white, middle-class woman compared to a woman of color from a lower socio-economic background. After being inspired by behavioral economics, I got angrier that we weren’t making enough progress in the space of diversity & inclusion in companies. And I thought everyone was tackling it wrong. I couldn’t understand why no one was using cross-functional research to make progress faster.  So I started to get involved. First, it was a project, then it was 10-20 percent of my job, until it took over all of the time I spent at work.

What is one thing even well-intentioned organizations get wrong about diversity and inclusion?

Many companies believe it’s too hard a problem to solve, or they focus too much on how to ‘speak’ to our conscious minds when trying to create change. I hope that more companies will learn from behavioral economics and embed D&I philosophy into the business strategy. It works best when a CEO truly thinks about D&I as a strategy for business success.

What about starting your own firm, how did that come about, and what can you do differently on your own that you could have with your previous employers?

It grew primarily organically. I started getting requests a few years ago, but sadly didn’t always have the ability to help while working in-house full time. This spring I decided that I needed a new challenge, and in the near future, I want to develop a free tool to help companies who may not have the funds to drive change. It’s a very exciting time. I get requests right and left. This is key as we will never succeed here as one, we need to create community and drive change on a bigger scale. That’s what I hope to do with my company.