Last week I attended the HR Tech conference in Vegas, our industry’s biggest event… and it’s both amazing and overwhelming.
With over 500 vendors in attendance, it’s a bit daunting to try to make sense of the complexity of this industry. And, if it’s complicated for me as the head of TA for a TA tech company, I can only imagine what it’s like for other TA leaders who don’t have the “insider knowledge” I benefit from because of where I work.
I went to HR Tech with my practitioner hat on — I attended sessions, checked out vendors in the expo, and networked with other TA leaders like myself. As I made new TA leader friends and caught up with old ones, I’m reminded that we’re all trying to solve the same problems at the core: How do we continue to evolve and transform our function to do it better, add more value, and where can technology enable scale while improving experience? Our specific use cases are where the differences lie, based on our industry, business priorities, unique hiring needs, current tech stack, and appetite for change.
With all that being said, I wanted to share my main takeaways from this year’s conference and advice for TA leaders.
Beware the shiny ball. Understand what problem you’re trying to solve, first.
AI, skills, and intelligence, oh my. There’s a lot out there and it’s easy to get excited about the buzz and feel like you’re in a race to catch up. My advice (and yes I realize the irony of this since my company builds AI driven software): Do not buy AI just to buy AI. It can be easy to fall prey to shining object syndrome. It can be easy to get swept up in all the buzz.
Getting clear on what problem you are trying to solve is super important. I’ve had friends in TA leadership roles confide in me that “we bought this technology but we’re not really sure what we got”. I get it, it happens — the lesson learned here is that if you’re not sure what you’re solving for in the first place, it’s easy to end up with technology that doesn’t fit your true business needs.
Vendors can do a better job being clear on what they do and who they are — and so can you.
In a sea of 500+ exhibitors, it’s critical to be clear and straightforward with what you offer and what problems you solve. There are a lot of buzzwords out there and it creates noise for TA leaders who are trying to understand who you are and what you do to understand if you can actually solve their problems. Time is precious here; it should be very clear within the first few sentences of our conversation what you do and how you solve problems for clients.
For the record, I believe that what we do at Paradox is really straightforward: We help clients get hiring work done, using AI to automate steps in the hiring process so people can spend time with people. At HR Tech, our clients generously shared their stories including citing real, tangible ROI — faster hiring cycles, thousands of roles filled and hours saved, and in some cases, millions of dollars returned to the bottom line.
Simplicity and experience matter.
I saw increased focus on employee experience, engagement, and wellbeing at HR tech this year. I think this makes sense as we have emerged from the pandemic and employees rethink their relationship with work. Providing a great experience to employees and candidates matters a lot, and technology can support and enable that experience (for better or worse).
Most companies have many, many systems that touch their people in some way, and most of those systems were not designed with the employee or end user in mind. These systems might do what they do really well, but they’re so complex that it’s just a mess for employees, candidates, and hiring managers (or recruiters). I saw more vendors this year creating simple, elegant user interfaces to provide a better user experience for employees, shifting to a more consumer grade experience with an emphasis on mobile. This is good to see.
Fortunately we’ve been at this from Day 1 at Paradox, so we’ve had years of experience creating simple, conversational interfaces for candidates and hiring teams (bypassing login and passwords, scheduling interviews over text are just a few examples) using a mobile-first, consumer-grade approach. Simply put, our tech just works.
.gif)
OK, final thoughts.
Although going to Vegas for work is always a lot, it was energizing to connect with TA peers and make new friends at HR Tech. It was pretty cool to have industry thought leaders and analysts mention Paradox as a trailblazer and leader in our space. Most of all, it was pretty special to hear from our clients the results they’re seeing — largely because they figured out what problems they really needed to solve, and trusted us to help them on their journey.
Looking forward to HR Tech 2024.
--
Listen in on more of our thoughts on HR Tech 2023 with VP of Strategic Solutions, Eleanor Vajzovic:
