There is no shortage of pros willing to wax lyrical on the latest developments in HR tech. According to RecruitingDaily President William Tincup, however, what’s more interesting is what they’re not telling us.

As head of the number-one source of HR news on the net, William Tincup straddles the confluence of HR and tech, delivering daily updates to an eager audience looking to get a grip on the constantly shifting world of recruiting. Given his unique position and experience, William writes and talks about the recruitment world with an honest objectivity that’s often lacking in a sector dominated by big name companies and endless hype.

And William doesn’t just restrict his knowledge to RecruitingDaily, he also acts on the board of advisors to numerous companies, both in the US and across the globe.

Along with many other HR thought leaders, William Tincup joined us at Hiring Success 18 to share his insights with other TA professionals who eagerly absorbed his wealth of knowledge about the recruiting industry. For those who missed out, here is a free sampling of Mr. Tincup’s musings. 

What does the concept of Hiring Success mean to you?

Hiring Success, to me, is about speed to value and the longtail retention of top talent. We need to hire to our values, candidates need to convert to employees (dare I say ‘raving fans’) quickly. Employees need to add value to the firm in a rapid fashion, and the top talent needs to stay with the firm (which all starts with hiring the right people). That value chain sounds easy but we all know it’s not.  

Where should “recruitment” be on a CEO’s list of priorities ?

In my experience, CEOs must establish the values, morals, and ethics of the firm, then live by them. Moreover, they must hold everyone to the same standards. Again, sounds easy, but it isn’t. How this ties to recruiting is simple: hire to your values, screen for competence and train/skill up as needed.   

Who was/is your biggest professional influence and why?

Sam Walton. Humble. Brilliant. Lived by a code called Sam’s Rules.

• Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren’t enough.
• Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.
• Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners.
• Exceed your customers’ expectations. They’ll come back over and over.
• Celebrate your success. Find some humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Loosen up and everybody around you will, too.
• Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.
• Communicate everything you possibly can with your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them.
• Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one of a kind loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them.
• Swim Upstream. Ignore conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find a niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.
• Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking to the folks on the front lines… the ones who actually talk to the customer are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there.

These “rules” were developed in the 1970s, and from department managers to the CEO of Wal-Mart, they all live by them. Sadly, Sam died in 1992. The company flourished with him at the helm and also since he’s been gone. How many companies in the world can say that? How many us live by a code?  

What do you think will be the defining feature of recruitment in 5 years?

Career mobility. Meaning, the ability for people to effortlessly work how, where, when, and for whom they want. Think of it in these terms. What if the players on any given sports team were decided the week before the game? Like in fantasy football, you arrange your team for the desired outcome, after “the game/project” you rearrange the team. Candidates will drive most innovation in recruitment technology.

How will they affect your average hiring manager? What will their day look like?

Adapt or die. Hiring managers need to stop thinking in myopic terms of full-time or part-time. They need to embrace the fluidity of talent. If they don’t, they run the risk of going the way of the fax machine — still kind of useful but mostly overlooked and forgotten.

Artificial intelligence is big talking point in many industries. What kind of challenges can you foresee in terms of its widespread implementation and acceptance?

Most of the discourse of AI is hype or best intentions at best. The proof in the pudding of AI is not about insight, it’s about action (which is derived from insight). It should connect the dots that I couldn’t see and then tell me what to do next. When someone can show me examples of that AI, then we’ll be on the right side of the hype wave. I personally view AI as being in the embryonic phase. It will grow up, attend Stanford, have a healthy life and add a ton of value. It’s just a bit early to be talking about Stanford while AI is still in the womb.  

Do you think there are other important tech developments brewing which aren’t being spoken about?

Tons. We’ll never hear the greatest stories of recruitment, as firms are smart about what they share publicly and what is a true competitive advantage. Recruitment, if done extraordinarily well, is a defensible competitive advantage. So, why would Coke put forth the formula for Coke for anyone to copy? They don’t. They won’t. So, we’re left with the stories that can get told, where moderate innovations are made. However, anyone really great, really innovative, they’re purposely hiding from us. Probably laughing at us. Laughing at what we get wrong and how they have it figured out.

What are the most urgent problems that need to be addressed in the recruitment industry?

Real honest transparency about the positions we’re filling, the actual values of the firm, the unwritten rules of the firm, and the real work environment. Essentially, we need to be brutally honest with our candidates — herpes and all. They can handle the truth, they want and deserve the truth. The question is, are we willing to tell the truth as opposed to the Disneyland version of the job and company via — ahem — our symphonic employer branding efforts.

Catch your breath after the marathon of Hiring Success 18, and relive some key moments from three days of TA inspiration… with more to come!

One thousand TA leaders from across the globe joined us in San Francisco for the third annual Hiring Success conference, and left with enough learnings to last the year until Hiring Success 19.

Here, we look back on some of our more special moments, where the intersection of passion and innovation was truly palpable, and of course, some that were just plain fun.

Analyst Day:

Top TA analysts kicked off Hire18 with a meeting of minds…

… and received advanced insight into new SmartRecruiters features. 

VIP Party:

Hire18 VIPs relaxed after Analyst Day at San Francisco’s hippest social club, The Battery, with food, drinks, and those famous SF rooftop views…

…and a heartfelt toast from Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork – pictured below with our CEO and founder Jerome Ternynck.

Keynote:

For the official opening of the conference, Jerome Ternynck roused the audience with a passionate unpacking of ‘Hiring Success’.

The Big Reveal – AI Recruiting Assistant:

One of many newsworthy announcements, SmartRecruiters launched our AI Recruiting Assistant, the only completely native AI on the market, that allows businesses to leverage the power of artificial intelligence to streamline recruiting processes, remove bias, and usher millions of candidates into their perfect job fit.

Predicting Quality of Hire:

Lou Adler, head of The Adler Group, revealed his methods, key features of his legendary methodology, including the one interview question that predicts ‘Quality of Hire’.

Texting Etiquette:

President of RecruitingDaily, William Tincup, managed to convince the audience to implement this traditionally personal platform into their recruiting practice, while simultaneously shocking attendees with ‘stranger than fiction’ examples of how terribly wrong it can go.

Hearing Accessibility:

All session attendees left the room with far more knowledge than they had going in, and in this particularly unique talk,  learned the challenges of deaf and hearing impaired workers, experiencing the latest technology that not only makes work more accessible to those in need, but makes everyone’s work-flow better.

The Blockchain Question:  

Serial founder and dock.io CEO Nick Macario spoke, alongside self-proclaimed futurist Kevin Wheeler, about the potential for blockchain to radically shape the future of HR. The goal: break candidate data out of closed platforms, create a decentralized and connected network, and return information control to individuals.

SmartyParty:

Hire18 took to the high seas for a dance party on the decks of the Hornblower…

… And of course a brief pitstop at the Smarty photobooth.

Standout Applicant:

We heard from applicants whose jobseeking processes were unique and tenacious.

Digital Marketing candidate Nina Mufleh talked about how she made her case to Airbnb by publishing a website that went viral: nina4airbnb.com

Shelley Winner was sent to prison for selling drugs. When she discovered she was pregnant, she turned her life around. She shared her candidate journey that led from a prison cell to the executive suite at Microsoft.

Robert Coombs wasn’t unsuccessful in PR, per se, but when he applied to corporate jobs, he got no love back. So he built a bot that applied to 3000 companies on his behalf, which effectively flipped the recruiting process!

Adidas, the story behind the Brand:

No one in the room was unfamiliar with the brand, but the company’s mechanics were new to most. And in many ways, the sports giant’s recruiting function is already operating in the future.

Recruiting Startup of the Year:

Honeypot swept the gold for Recruiting Startup of The Year with their developer-focused job platform that delivers qualified candidates to employers, and customizes and sends relevant offers to job seekers.

 Hackathon:

Four teams coded well into the night after the first day of Hire18 to deliver thoughtful customizations on the SmartRecruiters API. Visa took home the prize of $5k for an internal mobility add-on, which made it easier to find candidates from within an organization.

If your new year energy has been dulled by a couple weeks back at work it’s time to find some inspiration. Here are 13 HR thought leaders that will spur you to action on your work resolutions with strategies, advice, information, and gifs… a whole lot of gifs.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, sixty-two percent of adults in the U.S. now get their news from social media, so if you’re reading this article that number probably includes you. Twitter gets 59% of that traffic and here’s why: with Twitter, you have to keep it snappy and you’re way less likely to run into baby photos and the banal family updates with which Facebook has become synonymous (sorry Mark). 

So we thought we would help with the mid-January slump with 13 top picks for HR Twitters belonging to thought leaders from all levels of the industry. They’ve all got plenty of things to say about tech, strategy, diversity, pain points, and everything else TA to keep you inspired well into 2018.

#1 – Maisha Cannon: The One to Watch

Sourcing Leader for Procore Technologies, Maisha Cannon doesn’t just look for ways for recruiting to be faster, she looks for ways to make it better. That’s why her Twitter is such an interesting combination of strategies on how tech, data, and process reflection can bolster hiring managers and make recruiting more human. And it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a few cheeky gifs to illustrate the exasperations everyone in the industry feels at some point.

#SRtweetpick

#2 William Tincup: The Straight Shooter

Writer, speaker, RecruitingDaily President, and Texas native, William Tincup is all about the ‘dater’. As in ‘you can try anything but you better have the dater to back it up’. His Twitter is a great mix of interesting news shares and humorous takes on the pain points of HR. For some live and in person sass/insight from William register for Hire18, here! Happing March 12-14 in San Francisco.

#SRtweetpick

“I can’t wait to read your new white paper.” Said no one ever. Like ever ever. No really, no one has ever said or thought that.

— William Tincup (@williamtincup) April 22, 2014

#3 Lisa Wang: The Motivator

Take a big breath now if you’re going to read the following list aloud because Lisa Wang is more accomplished at 29 than most of us will ever be: founder/CEO of SheWorx, Forbes 30 Under 30, USA Hall of Fame Gymnast, Forbes columnist, host of her own podcast #Enoughness, motivational speaker, and Yale Alumna. Lisa’s Twitter is a great resource for information on women in tech, the future of AI, and management strategies all broken up with a light sprinkle of motivational messages. To catch her in person March 12-14 in San Francisco register for Hire18 here!

#SRtweetpick

In a study by the US Department of Commerce, women in STEM jobs earn 33 percent more money than women in non-STEM positions. #womeninSTEM #startups https://t.co/CFeZ98iiKy pic.twitter.com/4AYqOp6VMH

— Lisa Wang (@LisaWorx) January 10, 2018

#4 Kathryn Minshew: The Culture Cultivator

Founder TheMuse, author of TheNewRules of Work, Forbes 30-under-30, and INC 15 women to watch in tech – if Kathryn Minshew isn’t in the office she’s probably checking off another country off of her bucket list with 60 down so far. Her Twitter focuses on enriching company culture and making your office a place top-candidates want to be.

#SRtweetpick

An interesting idea via @FortuneMagazine: “The best way for companies to fight sexual harassment? Let someone else handle it.” https://t.co/DWyNzkzqcG

— Kathryn Minshew (@kmin) January 5, 2018

#5 Lou Adler: The Veteran

The original headhunter, Lou Adler is the CEO and founder of the Adler Group, which has trained over 40,000 recruiters and hiring managers. His books, The Essential Guide for Hiring and Getting Hired and Hire With Your Head have been on Amazon’s bestseller list and he’s been around, well… forever. He knows his stuff. His Twitter is full of tips for hiring smarter with data backed articles on evaluating and improving your recruiting methods. Lou will be joining us for Hire18 in San Francisco March 12-14, register here!

#SRtweetpick

Here Are the Best (and Worst) Predictors of Quality of Hire https://t.co/KlQU14DOpU via @hireonlinkedin

— Lou Adler (@LouA) January 11, 2018

#6 Gemma Jamieson: The Wonderkins

HR Coordinator at Wattsnexthr, Gemma Jamieson tackles contemporary HR issues like mental health, diversity, and media distraction at work. She’s a newbie to the business but her thoughtfully curated Twitter, that’s both sleek and informative, as well as her 30k followers, say she’s got a future here.

#SRtweetpick

It Takes 23 Minutes to Recover from a Distraction at Work. Here’s How to Minimize Calls, Emails, and Alerts https://t.co/4ltmkP0ZWi

— Gemma Jamieson (@wattsnextGemma) January 12, 2018

#7  Angela Bortolussi: The Techsplainer

Angela Bortolussi is the Partner & Recruiting Manager at Recruiting Social specializing in engineering, product and data roles. That means she’s right at the intersection of tech and HR and can see how one will be affected by the other. Follow her Twitter to learn about the latest tech concepts that everyone’s talking about but no one seems to understand. Blockchain? She’s got you. Cryptoassets? That too.

#SRtweetpick

“Beginner’s guide series on cryptoassets” by @ljxie https://t.co/LJJAAreT5t #crypto #bitcoin

— Angela Bortolussi (@ABortolusssi) December 15, 2017

#8 Soumyasanto Sen: The Sentinal

Management consultant and blogger, Soumyasanto Sen is always on the lookout for the next tech breakthrough that will change the way we work. As a founder and partner of the brand new management consulting startup, People Conscious, he has to stay up to date on the latest in HRIT and you get to benefit. His Twitter is a journal of what matters now in information systems so take advantage.

#SRtweetpick

What the #futureofwork will mean for jobs, skills, and wages https://t.co/iw8jjnnKtt via @McKinsey_MGI #HR #recruitment #Hiring #talent #Workforce #HRTech >> impact of #automation varies by a country.. Germany’s workforce will decline by 3 million people by 2030

— Soumyasanto Sen (@soumyasanto) January 12, 2018

#9  Jannis Tsalikis: The Sass Master

You would expect any employee of Vice to equipped with quips, and their HR Director for Germany, Jannis Tsalikis, is no exception. He’s an expert on employer branding and his Twitter perfectly toes the line between humorous personal angst and HR best practice. Just a heads up, it’s all in Deutsch but the gifs alone are worth the translation.

#SRtweetpick

Und? Bist du bereit? Teste dich: Bist du HR-XMAS ready? Jetzt auf “Mein Freund, die Arbeitgebermarke!” #HumanResources #testing#christmas https://t.co/jkHWTj3uu0 pic.twitter.com/mXQMbPlN12

— Jannis Tsalikis (@JannisTsalikis) December 8, 2017

#10 Josh Bersin: The Architect

HR analyst and founder of the research and advisory firm Bersin by Deloitte, Josh Bersin focuses on bolstering companies through strengthening their workforce. His Twitter explores management, leadership, and HR tech strategies to help employers attract and retain the best people, as well as exploring the wider political trends that affect the job market. He sees the moving pieces that contribute to the design of employment trends today. To hear more from Josh in person join us March 12-14 in San Francisco for Hire18, register here!

#SRtweetpick

Health care just became the U.S.’s largest employer. Note that the biggest segments are in clinical (nursing) and administration, many of which are not subject to automation. https://t.co/9OlqKBeJF8

— Josh Bersin (@Josh_Bersin) January 11, 2018

#11 Kasia Borowicz: Voice of the People

Social recruiting and sourcing trainer, Kasia Borowicz is all about getting your systems aligned but she knows how hard it can be when the small things get in the way –especially tech that’s supposed to help you be faster! Her Twitter makes light of all the common pain points recruiters experience, so if you need some reassurance that you aren’t the only one who gets locked out of LinkedIn, turn to Kasia.

#SRtweetpick

Wow. A fair few people getting blocked on @LinkedIn pic.twitter.com/RxUm7Um7Ld

— Ben Gledhill (@recruiterguynw) January 10, 2018

#12 Anna Ott: The Scout

Anna Ott spends her days trying out new HR systems with startups at the Deutsche Telekom incubator Hub:raum. She wants to recruit faster, with less fuss, so don’t talk CVs with Anna, she’s already left those relics behind. Her Twitter is a great news source for the latest systems innovations so follow to be on the avant-garde.

#SRtweetpick

The Top Sourcing Tools to Download in 2018 https://t.co/tA03d0gbaS

— anna ott (@frauott) January 12, 2018

#13 David Green: The Big Picture Guy

David Green is the Global Director of People Analytics Solutions for IBM Watson Talent as well as a writer, speaker, conference chair and consultant. Somewhere in there, he manages to get out a couple hundred characters a day on Twitter to let us know whats happening in recruiting from his global perspective. If you want to understand the larger trends in the world economy and the implications tech has on our work future, this is the twitter for you.

#SRtweetpick

What Will People Do All Day? (when the robots have taken all the jobs) | https://t.co/sAp1MBc7iJ #FutureOfWork #HR

— David Green (@david_green_uk) January 11, 2018