#HRTechChat: James Galvin, CEO and Co-Founder of Starcircle

The talent acquisition of today is nonlinear. By this, we mean it’s all one thing, not a siloed process with many activities taking place in an orderly fashion or readily apparent, repeatable sequence. James Galvin should know. Our guest for this episode of the #HRTechChat video podcast, James is CEO and co-founder of Starcircle, a Cork, Ireland–headquartered vendor of cloud software and services designed to result in truly effective talent acquisition campaigns by looking at these as holistic efforts and considering sourcing first, and not last — an idea embodied in a term Starcircle uses: long-tail talent. Take artificial intelligence, for example. It’s difficult to discuss modern talent acquisition without mentioning AI. This is because AI has entered the fray of talent acquisition for good. This is not hype. At the same time, however, “there’s a lack of understanding around how AI is going to fit into talent acquisition,” said James during the podcast. “And one thing’s for sure is: it’s not going to do your work for you. ” The issue goes back to the tried-and-true old adage about relying on computers: garbage in, garbage out. Known perhaps even better for its acronym, GIGO is the idea that it doesn’t matter how powerful a computer is: if the data going in is bad (i.e., garbage), the computer will spit out something of very little value (i.e., again, garbage). AI is the result of highly advanced, sophisticated computing, which of course means that GIGO applies to AI, too. Say you’re an employer. Say there’s an open role. Not that it necessarily matters for the example, but say it’s an executive role that you’re trying to fill. You’re certain of the qualities and characteristics you want or believe you need in new candidates for an open role. But who’s to say your certainty is warranted? Very few ask the question, and once you inform the AI in your talent acquisition technology with whatever ideas you have, you’ll get the candidates you requested. The problem is, your idea of what you want or need is probably a little or way off the mark when it comes to what you actually need or should want. Apply the AI without any thought to this deep consideration, and never mind the disservice to diversity: you risk perpetuating deep-seated organizational dysfunction. Talent acquisition is no longer a clean chain of neatly defined in-tandem events or occurrences culminating in a hire. Just as there is an emerging new talent acquisition suite for the future of work, in other words, so there is an emerging new process to go about finding and acquiring new talent. As the one who is planning talent acquisition for your organization, you could take this holistic view of talent acquisition and think of yourself as being at the center of a circle. A circle is a nice visual for the idea of something being nonlinear, after all. On this episode of the podcast, James and I went on what you might characterize as a walkabout. AI was just one topic. Our discussion touched on talent acquisition in a deep way: how approaching recruiting as if it were a sales funnel is a mistake, James believes — precisely because talent acquisition has become so nonlinear why sourcing is anything but transactional and should be the first (instead of last) thing employers rethink in their approach to recruiting what friction in hiring is and how lessening this friction helps employers engage with their talent pipelines and avert candidate abandonment down the line