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LinkedIn’s 2024 Future of Recruiting Report #FutureOfRecruiting @LinkedInTalentSolutions

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This week, LinkedIn released its latest Future of Recruiting Report, and as always, it was packed with great data for TA pros and leaders. LinkedIn has an absolute treasure trove of recruiting data, so this is always one of the reports I can’t wait to dig into.

What were their predictions?

  1. AI will supercharge recruiting.

This isn’t surprising as AI is on everyone’s mind across the entire enterprise. AI is changing work, and it will change how we recruit talent. Interestingly, we are still in the early days, so while it’s the #1 prediction, there still isn’t a lot of meat on this bone around how. That’s really the billion-dollar question everyone in TA is working to answer, including LinkedIn, which will have a giant advantage because of their parent, Microsoft, and Microsoft’s massive investment into OpenAI, which is out in the lead on GenAI. Stay tuned. I’m very interested in seeing what the LinkedIn product team is working on!

2. Recruiting will help build the skills-based workforce of the future.

This kind of gives you a bit of an answer to the first prediction. If recruiting is going to change, LinkedIn believes skills will be the answer to what recruiters will be shifting to in the future. Skills are definitely evolving, but it’s another massive understanding for organizations. Also, it’s just about skills. We still must consider the whole person and their fit into the culture. Just because someone has the skills to do the job doesn’t mean they’ll succeed at the job or within your unique culture. It’s still a work in progress.

3. Quality of Hire is top of the recruiting agenda.

As it has been for two decades! And yet, we still do not have an industry standard to measure QoH, nor do most organizations actually use it as a measure of success. Nor is it actually a recruiting metric! Here is where I think LinkedIn could espouse a measure and even build it for the industry. Currently, CrossChq is the closest to making this a reality within their product and consistently delivering a QoH metric that is reliable to the business (Editor’s note: CrossChq isn’t paying me – neither is LinkedIn – which seems like an opportunity!). The reality is that QoH can be a fantastic measure of success around talent for an organization, but you actually have to do it!

4. Agility will be a must-have for recruiting teams.

Again, see number 1. As the great Ferris Bueller once said, “The world moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Agility in TA means we need to stop guessing and be more data-driven in our decision-making. This means you have to stop using archaic measures like Time to Fill to understand talent acquisition.

5. Recruiting teams will advocate for flex work policies.

And higher wages. And better benefits. And managers that don’t suck. In the future, recruiters will advocate for anything and everything that will help them attract the best talent.

6. Attracting GenZ will require a new playbook.

Yes! And that playbook is as follows (Tim’s words, not LinkedIn!):

  • Good pay and benefits for the work
  • A chance to learn and grow within their role
  • An organization that cares about them
  • A manager and leaders they can trust
  • To be treated like an adult around work and life.

Okay, so maybe it’s not a totally new playbook…

You might look at the six predictions and think, “these could have been the same last year, and the year before” and you probably wouldn’t be wrong. Also, they might be the same next year. That’s what happens when you have a major technology shift happening. It’s hard to predict. But, these are six strong strategy pillars for TA leaders to build around for the years to come.

Go download the report – there’s a massive amount of arts and charts, and data in it!

HR and Recruiting: The Unspoken Rules

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Some unsaid rules guide us through HR. They’re not really hard and fast rules, just practical tips that we’ve learned along the way. Let’s break them down:

  1. Stay away from personal questions in interviews.
  2. Keep reference checks simple – just confirm dates of employment.
  3. Guard employee files like they’re top-secret.
  4. If it’s important, put it in a policy.
  5. Take every accusation seriously and look into it.
  6. “Mutual decision to leave” usually means otherwise.
  7. Measurement gets things done.
  8. Be careful about setting precedents.
  9. Expect things to go haywire on day 2 of your vacation.
  10. A candidate hasn’t really accepted the job until they show up to work on Day 1.
  11. If it’s on the ‘roadmap’ of your HR or Recruiting technology vendor, it means it’s not actually built and might never be built.
  12. Employees tattling on others probably have their own issues.
  13. Employee harassment stories are rarely simple.
  14. Open enrollment meetings need cookies.

We love our rules in HR! Ironically, I love the profession so much because I’m a low-rules kind of person. The reality is, in my couple decades of HR and recruiting work there really has only been one Rule of Thumb that has been the same at every organization I’ve worked in. Big and small. Public and private. Across all industries…

– Things change.

This basic principle reminds us that flexibility is crucial in the ever-shifting HR landscape. What’s your go-to rule in HR and recruiting?

The Good Ole Inbox Zero Metric

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This holiday season, I’m stepping away from my usual writing to bring you some of the top-read posts from 2023. Enjoy!

Inbox Zero as a Measure of Performance for Talent Acquisition!

I have a new #1 question I get asked by Talent Acquisition Leaders! My old number one question was, “Which ATS should we be using?” That stood the test of time for almost a decade! But I now have a new number one.

“How should we be measuring success in Talent Acquisition?”

That question comes in a lot of versions:

  • What is the best metric in recruiting?
  • What do you use to measure the productivity of your recruiters?
  • How do you show your organization that TA is doing its job?
  • What are the metrics you use to measure TA?

I like using “Measures of Success” terminology primarily because of how I want to live my life. I never want our metrics, analytics, and data to be used as a hammer to obtain performance. I want to hire people who want to be successful in what they decide to do in life. Once they make that decision, I want to treat them like adults and help them obtain that success. I use data to help them track outcomes and measures of success to lead them on this journey.

Does that sound like a load of B.S. hustle culture or what?! LOL!

But, honestly, I genuinely believe in this philosophy, even though it’s sometimes hard to follow.

If a recruiter wants to be successful, I know there is a specific set of measures that will help them be successful if they follow the process, use the technology, and are diligent in their follow-up. They don’t have to work over 40 hours per week. They just have to work the 40 hours they work.

Every company could have a varied set of metrics that will make them successful. Most will have some similarities, but the actual numbers within the measures will be uniquely yours.

Inbox Zero is a measure a few TA Teams are using as a measure of success.

First off, I don’t necessarily believe that “Inbox Zero” has a high correlation to TA Team or Individual success, but herein lies the problem with measuring the success of TA teams today. The measures most of us use, suck! Time to fill = awful, zero correlation, you should be fired as a leader. (Editor’s note: Okay, Tim, breathe in, we know you’ll die on this hill.)

I find about 90% of TA Leaders work to build measures of success that look good without really having any real impact on actual recruiting success in their organization. That hurts, I know, but it’s true. Inbox Zero is just another sexy attempt at measuring sh*t with little accountability to success, but you can actually measure it, so it must be important. (sarcasm alert)

Just because you “can” measure it, doesn’t mean you “should” measure it.

Okay, what the hell is “Inbox Zero”?

It’s basically what it sounds like.

As a recruiting measure, some brilliant TA lead believes if every recruiter ended their day with zero emails in their inbox, they must be more successful than someone who didn’t end their day with email in their inbox.

There is some science behind inbox zero, although not a measure of recruiting success, just life success. It was developed in 2006, and here are the tenets of this email management strategy:

  • Some messages are more equal than others. On any given day, only a handful of emails are important and timely. Stop treating every email “like a Christmas present that must be savored.”
  • Your time is priceless and wildly limited. Few people have time to respond to every email they receive or even read them in detail. Accept that your workload exceeds your resources and slavishly guard your time.
  • Less can be so much more. Quit thinking that one-line email responses are rude — you’re not helping anyone by sending wordy responses. When it comes to email, economy is key, at least for most messages.
  • Lose the guilt. Out-of-control email is bad enough. Don’t make it worse by beating yourself up because of your overflowing inbox. Forget the guilt and just get busy cleaning up the mess.
  • Lying to yourself doesn’t empty an inbox. Learn to be honest and realistic about your true priorities and time expectations, while developing a “baseline gut check on what you really intend to do about any given message.”

The reality is we are addicted to data that we can measure that is clean. We love “time to fill” because we can accurately measure it. We like things like Inbox Zero because we can accurately measure it. We can show the business the black-and-white numbers we are confident in. No matter if they actually matter or not!

Inbox Zero is a time management strategy. The hope is if you can manage your inbox well, you’ll be a better recruiter. It’s a hope. That is all it is. It’s not a measure of success for talent acquisition. That being said, I need to manage my inbox better!

Posted on  by Tim Sackett

The Quest for Simplicity!

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Ever wondered why HR Departments insist on tangled processes? Truth is, we all crave simplicity. But peek into our organizations and complexity rules the roost. The harder we try to simplify, the messier it gets. Surprisingly, the culprit’s closer than you think—it’s you. Yes, YOU. Yup, making things complicated? It’s kind of your thing. Go ahead and pick up that red pencil in the photo and circle “Complicate” instead, you know you want to!

Harvard Business Review dropped some knowledge bombs:

“There are several deep psychological reasons why stopping activities are so hard to do in organizations. First, while people complain about being too busy, they also take a certain amount of satisfaction and pride in being needed at all hours of the day and night. In other words, being busy is a status symbol. In fact a few years ago we asked senior managers in a research organization — all of whom were complaining about being too busy — to voluntarily give up one or two of their committee assignments. Nobody took the bait because being on numerous committees was a source of prestige.

Managers also hesitate to stop things because they don’t want to admit that they are doing low-value or unnecessary work. Particularly at a time of layoffs, high unemployment, and a focus on cost reduction, managers want to believe (and convince others) that what they are doing is absolutely critical and can’t possibly be stopped. So while it’s somewhat easier to identify unnecessary activities that others are doing, it’s risky to volunteer that my own activities aren’t adding value. After all, if I stop doing them, then what would I do?”


Ron Ashkenas. “Why Organizations Are Afraid to Simplify.” March 28, 2013. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2013/03/why-organizations-are-so-afraid-to-simplify

Turns out, people love complaining about being swamped, but secretly, they enjoy it. Being busy is like a gold star.

Managers cling to tasks like lifelines. Admitting something they do is low-value or unnecessary? Terrifying. Especially when job cuts loom large. They’d rather sell the idea that what they do is crucial, even if it isn’t.

Here’s the kicker: you can break this cycle. How? Reward people for axing pointless work. Right now, we hail the overworked, perpetually busy folks like heroes. But let’s not forget the silent achievers—the ones who nail it in half the time. Somewhere down the line, ‘working smarter’ morphed into ‘work smarter and longer.’ Truth is, most folks can’t work smarter, so they pile on hours and glorify every task as vital.

Cracking the Code

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In the world of recruiting, most conversations I’ve heard come in coded language. Understanding the true meaning behind these terms can be both revealing and enlightening. Let’s decode a few together:

1. “Offer Pending”

  • What it implies: “I’m preparing to extend an offer.”
  • What it means: “I’m uncertain about the candidate’s willingness to accept, or they haven’t responded yet.”

2. “Professional References”

  • What it implies: “Previous supervisors providing insights about your work.”
  • What it means: “References like your parent’s friend or your old coach don’t cut it. My boss wants your previous boss to tell us how great you are versus your priest telling us how great you are.”

3. “Market Offer“

  • What it implies: “Salary based on local industry standards.”
  • What it means: “We didn’t anticipate market changes; here’s what we can afford based on projections from a couple of years ago.”

4. “Excellent Benefits Package“

  • What it implies: “Comprehensive benefits covered by us.”
  • What it means: “Similar benefits to others, but ‘Excellent Benefits’ definitely sounds more appealing.”

5. “An “A” Candidate“

  • What it implies: “Top-tier talent with impeccable credentials.”
  • What it means: “This is the best person (and only person) we could find to accept your marginal pay rate, crappy location, and iffy company culture.”

6. “Niche Recruiter“

  • What it implies: “Specialized in specific skills or industries.”
  • What it means: “You think you need someone who specifically recruits only for what you are looking for. The reality is a great recruiter can find you whoever you need regardless of skill/industry, but it makes you feel better if we tell you we have that specific niche.  So, YES, we are “niche.”

This recruiting jargon effectively masks reality and creates a culture of polite misdirection. We “dance” with each other and tell each other what we want to hear – and we leave with this wonderful false sense of security that everything is fine. Yet, when crucial decisions are at stake, transparency does matter. When in doubt – Speak the truth.

Iron Bowl 2023 Recap from a Non-Invested Fan!

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If you read this blog regularly, you know my best friend Kris Dunn, and he’s an Auburn University fan. I’m a Michigan State fan. And like best friends do, we support each other in our fandom and sometimes in our misery of fandom.

Thanksgiving weekend each year is a big rivalry week in college football. You’ve got a lot of big games: UofM vs. Ohio State, Washington vs. Washington State, Florida vs. Florida State, etc. Arguably, the biggest one is Auburn vs. Alabama, which they’ve titled the Iron Bowl!

So, when Kris offered me to come down for a game, I, of course, had to go see the Iron Bowl! You know what they say? Throw out the records. This is a backyard brawl, brother vs. brother. These teams know each other like family, and it’s about bragging rights for the rest of the year.

I grew up in Big Ten country and have lived through every single UofM vs. MSU game since I was old enough to remember. For years, “we” (MSU) got destroyed by UofM. For most of my life, that was the case. Then we hired the right coach, and we went on a pretty good decade run. Kris and I like to believe that MSU and Auburn are similar. We have these big rivals with national brands, Michigan and Alabama, so you’re almost always going to be the underdog. But being the underdog has some amazing celebrations when you finally win one.

I won’t bore you with details of a game that has already happened. Long story short, like every classic memorable football game, Alabama won on a miracle play when it looked like all was lost, and Auburn got their hearts broken. I was there to see the entire devastatingly amazing thing.

Thoughts from a Big Ten Guy in SEC country for the biggest rivalry in college football:

  • Folks in the SEC take football more seriously than up north. That’s a fact. I will not argue. I’ve seen it firsthand. They get to the games earlier. They are way more engaged throughout. They don’t leave early.
  • The SEC pre-game stuff made me feel like I was in a cult. They have dudes with microphones leading cheers 20 minutes before kickoff, and it’s unlike anything you see in the Big Ten or Pac12. The entire stadium is doing these old-time 1940s type Raw-Raw-We-Kick’em-In-The-Knee type cheers. It’s funny and amazing all at the same time.
  • The Auburn Eagle flying out at pre-game is something every single college football fan has to see. It’s America at its finest, and if terrorists saw this in person, they would understand why America can never be defeated. You pair this with three F-15 fighter jets flying overhead, and you just want to wrap yourself in the flag and stand a post!
  • Alabama’s band had 30 women twirling guns. GUNS! AMERICA! You can’t make this up. Thirty women wearing bathing suits, in stripper boots, and twirling guns! It made me want to go vote!
  • If I’m running a football stadium in the Big Ten, ACC, Pac12, etc. I am sending my stadium entertainment team to watch SEC games in person. They do it differently. They do it better. I’ve never been to a better stadium environment than the Iron Bowl at Auburn.
  • I love college sports because I think you have more of a chance to see amazing things happen, I.E., Upsets. The joy and pain you see in upsets can’t be replicated. I got to witness that, in a way, fans of those teams will talk about for a decade until the next amazing thing happens. Ten years ago, for the record, the Kick 6 happened, which snatched the win out of Alabama’s fans’ hands with one second, and Auburn got the big win. For a decade, Auburn has been able to warm themselves on cold nights thinking about that one memory. Now, it’s Alabama’s turn. The hard part for Auburn fans to swallow is that it seems like Alabama has an embarrassment of riches, and they don’t deserve this moment. I kind of agree! The underdog deserves this moment!
  • These are 18-22-year-old kids playing a game they love with hopes of going on to professional football. Less than 1% will. So, at the end of the night, when the lights go off, and crowds go home, these are still just young men playing a game and trying everything in their might to win. For themselves, their coaches, their school, and their fans. I have to remember this sometimes. For how badly I want my team to win, those kids playing the game want it a million more times than I do. They are the ones putting in the work. So, my heart breaks for the Auburn players.
  • Alabama coach Nick Saban said it best after the game. Basically, if you play the game long enough, you’re going to experience some amazing things and some heartbreaking things. That’s part of playing the game. That night, he got to be on the positive side of that experience, but he’s also been on the other side. The bad times make the good times all that better.

Thank you for allowing me to indulge you with something non-recruiting or HR-related. Although, there’s a lot of learning from the greatest things we experience in our lives that I’ll definitely take with me!

Life’s Tough, But It Evens Out

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In the realm of motivational quotes, one has continually stuck with me: “It’s hard, but it’s fair.” An older football coach used it to fire up his players, but it speaks volumes about life today.

The coach’s son, Toler Jr., eloquently defines the meaning of the phrase:

“It’s about sacrifice. It means that if you work hard, at the end of the day, fairness aligns with your efforts. It’s about investing time and readiness for the opportunities.”

We all think our parents are hard on us growing up.  I recall stories I tell to my own sons of my Dad waking me up on a Saturday morning at 7am, after I was out to late the night before, and ‘making’ me help him with something, like chopping wood or cleaning the garage out.  He didn’t really need my help, he was trying to teach me a lesson about choices.  If I chose to stay out late at night, it was going to suck getting up early to go to school.  He shared with me stories of his father doing the same thing – one night my Dad had gotten home late, so late, he didn’t even go to bed, just started a pot of coffee and waited for my grandfather to get up, figuring that was easier than getting a couple of hours of sleep and then hearing it from my grandfather the rest of the day.

In my role as an HR professional, I witness this every day in the workforce. There are those who consistently dedicate themselves without expecting special treatment. Others will put in the minimum, then expect a cookie. It’s a tough life lesson for those folks. Often, they depart, perceiving unfair treatment, and move between jobs, slowly learning the importance of effort and time investment. In my three decades in HR, genuine hard workers rarely face injustice. Occasionally, undeserving individuals might receive promotions, but the hard workers usually secure the better end of the deal.

As a parent, I hope I can teach my sons this lesson: Life is inherently challenging, but commitment and hard work pave the path to fairness.

Your Weekly Dose of HR Technology: @Workday and AI #HRTechConf

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This week on The Weekly Dose, I’m going to discuss some recent announcements from Workday around some AI functionality they’ve launched. Workday might be the biggest brand in HR. You would have had to been completely sleeping through the past twenty years not to understand the giant impact Workday has made in HR Technology. There might not be another single brand in HR Tech that has taken more overall market share in the past couple of decades than Workday.

I think it’s important to have a productive conversation around Workday because of how many users use Workday in HR, Learning, and TA on a daily basis. Large HCM technology runs most HR shops across the globe, and while they might be as nimble as HR startups, they do the vast majority of blocking and tackling in HR.

In January, when ChatGPT and Generative AI became the most talked about topic of the year, my feeling then, and now, was that we would really have to wait and see how companies like Workday build out this new AI technology within the systems and processes we use every day. This is truly how most of us will experience AI, so I’m excited to see Workday’s recent announcements because this will really be the future of HR Technology for most of us.

What are the big Workday AI announcements?

  • “Ask Workday” – one of the major announcements that will feel most familiar to many of us is the Ask Workday feature built on Generative AI. In an everyday sense of how most users use HR Technology, this feature, to me, is how I imagined AI would impact us! Having a hiring manager ask something like, “What is the activity on my open jobs?” Instead of waiting to get a response from a recruiter, the hiring manager can get a real-time data-driven narrative, which is truly a game changer. But it’s more than that because this is also something employees can use to shape their career path, etc.
  • “Manager Insights Hub” – This is a new feature that truly uses the power of AI and Workday’s data insights. This is a completely integrated Manager portal that lets any manager of people look at employee goals, development plans, feedback, and other information in a single integrated page. This is a feature completely designed to solve one of the major deficits we see in so many organizations – making our leaders better! This feature also helps the manager and employee create a growth plan.
  • Automatically create Job Descriptions from Workday’s LLM, create policies, how-to guides, etc. This is what so many of us expected from GPT-like AI built into our HR systems, so this wasn’t unexpected, but it’s nice to see how quickly some of this tech has been rolled out and able to be used in real-world everyday HR use cases.

While just a start, it shows how serious Workday is at moving as fast as they can to leverage this new technology and help HR teams become more productive. I’m excited to see the direction they continue to evolve this technology around things like skills measuring, matching of skills to jobs, and the potential for screening both candidates and internal candidates to jobs.

It’s clear from these recent announcements that we should be prepared to see ongoing announcements coming from the large HCM players in our space. AI is transforming all of our functional systems and technology, and Workday is moving fast to take advantage of the productivity gains that can be made, but also how AI can transform your HR practice across the enterprise.

The Biggest Trends in Recruiting Technology in 2023! #HRTechConf

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Next week, my good friend and super smart lady, Madeline Laurano, and I will be leading a session at The HR Technology Conference and Expo in Vegas. We did a short video to give you a sneak preview of what to expect:

The Great Duo in TA Tech History

Also, I’ll be introducing “Tim Sackett’s TA Technology Product of the Year!” sponsored by Aptitude Research! I’m dropping this on Madeline right now – she didn’t even know I was going to do this! You have to come to see who and what it will be!

If you can’t be in Vegas, I’ll announce it right here on the morning of Friday,hr t October 13th! Stay Tuned!

The Ball Will Always Find You!

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There is a baseball metaphor about the ball finding you. Basically, if you are unprepared or you are scared, that’s precisely when the ball will find you! The moment you least want the ball to come to you is when the ball is hit at you. I’ve heard coaches say this statement my entire life being around baseball.

Life works like this as well.

The one time when you go into the office, and you’re not really prepared for your job or function is the day you’ll be called into an emergency meeting with the CEO! The one question you don’t prepare to be asked will be the one that will be asked.

So, how do you prepare yourself for being unprepared?

1. Acknowledge it when it comes.

So often, we want to try and fake our way through something we weren’t prepared for, but it shows. We aren’t really fooling anyone but ourselves. So, acknowledge it. You know, that’s a great question you asked. I’m not prepared to answer that at this moment, but let me do some research and come back to you with a thorough answer.

2. Redirect the conversation to what you do know.

This isn’t perfect because a savvy executive will come back to the original question, but 60% of the time, it works every time! “That’s a great question. What I focused on were these factors, which, in my estimation, is what we need. I believe…”

3. Answer another question like you’re answering their question.

This is risky, but politicians use this tactic all the time, and it mostly works because the person asking the question is sure you answered their question or not, and they don’t want to sound dumb by asking it again, thinking you answered it! Tim, can you give me some insight into how much we’ll be over budget in TA by the end of the year? “Sure, first, it’s amazing the progress we’ve made. At the beginning of the year, we had no idea we’d be 75% over our planned hiring, and the team has been amazing in reaching that goal. In the second half of the year, we see hiring beginning to slow, and we are anticipating that in Q1 of 2024, we’ll be back up to normal.” Then you just shut up or ask if anyone else has any other questions! Bonus points if you actually go back at them during your answer with some verbal ques like, “You understand, right?” Of course, they’ll be nodding yes! At that point, they will never follow up with another question!

4. Bluff.

Answer the question, even though you don’t really know the answer, and hope and pray they also don’t know the answer! I’ve seen way too many people in my career try and look like a fool. I find that very few executives ask a question they don’t have some semblance of an answer to already. They are just checking to see if you’re on your game and have the answer. So, I do not recommend bluffing. This is usually a low-performer behavior that is probably getting fired soon anyway, and they’re desperate!

5. Open the conversation up to the broader audience or the person who asked the question.

This strategy works really well if you have a strong relationship and trust with the person or people you’re speaking with. In this tactic, you basically acknowledge you don’t know but come back and see if anyone knows or has a strong opinion. You are still driving the conversation and asking questions, which puts you in an authority position, so you don’t look weak by not knowing the answer to the question being asked. “That’s a great question. I actually don’t know the answer, but I’m wondering if anyone else in the room does. Or does anyone have a feeling on what this might look like?” At this point, you could offer up an educated guess as to what you believe it to be if no one else has anything and agree to come back with some more specific information.

Professionally, the ball is going to find you whether you are ready for it or not. We all hope that we will be prepared and ready, but that’s not always the case. Your next reaction is critical to how others will end up viewing you. The more confident you are in your ability and performance, the easier it is to say you just don’t know. Unfortunately, so many times throughout our careers, we get caught off guard, and it might be during a time when our confidence isn’t super high, and that opens us up to trying to make something up on the fly and opening ourselves up to being viewed as a fool.