HHH_Kyle Lagunas
===
[00:00:00] Welcome to Hiring Happy Hour, where we celebrate the human side of hiring. I'm your host, Nicole Hammond, and together we'll pull back the curtain on people shaping the future of work, the innovators, the dreamers, the change makers behind today's hiring experience. These are the real stories behind the dashboards.
From leaders transforming talent acquisition to the everyday moments that remind us why we love hiring in the first place, to connect people with purpose, hiring happy hours. Brought to you by Smartrecruiters, an SAP company, the AI powered software for super human hiring, helping organizations hire faster, smarter, and we're human.
Nicole Hammond: Hi everybody. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Hiring Happy Hour. This is gonna be a fun one. I already know we did our warmup and we are already having fun. So I thought we'd start recording and, uh, you guys can join us on this fun episode. But first, [00:01:00] let me share more. He is a transformational talent leader, principal analyst, and trusted advisor.
Yes. We trust him with more than a decade of studying innovation cycles across the talent ecosystem. He brings rare, and I do mean rare end-to-end insight from having led in practitioner, vendor, and analyst roles. This is gonna be important later, but know there won't be a test he previously served as the head of talent attraction, sourcing and insight at General Motors, and as a director of strategy at Beamery, founder and Principal Analyst at Kyle and Co.
Kyle Laguna, welcome Kyle.
Kyle Lagunas: Hi. Oh God, sound really extremely important and You know what I am.
Nicole Hammond: You are fab, and yes you are. I mean, that's why I love doing these intros, right?
Kyle Lagunas: Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: And now you're even more fab because you have your own [00:02:00] company.
Kyle Lagunas: Yeah, well that's, um, I also have a lot more gray hair.
Nicole Hammond: It's okay. It's just a testament to your amazingness, right? Every single hair has a wise story behind it.
Kyle Lagunas: I've got plenty.
Nicole Hammond: All right, Kyle, we could talk about everything under the sun. I, I believe it. I feel it. Uh, but I think for today, I want us to talk about your hiring happy hour. You have such a unique perspective with all of the different.
Point of views you have from all the different roles you've had, and now just sitting in the seat of having your own organization and getting to choose who you work with, um, and the reasons why you work with them, I think is going to be very, very intriguing to our audience. But. When we talked first, I know it was really hard for us to pick a direction, uh, 'cause there's so many different angles we could go with hiring happy hour, but you've done amazing things in your career and we wanna hear about one and one or two or whatever that may [00:03:00] help our audience to, to do better as they go through the decision making process around hiring and talent acquisition.
So tell me, without further ado, what is your hiring happy hour.
Kyle Lagunas: Um, You know, something that comes to mind is actually. that has made me very self-conscious in the past, but I feel like I could be vulnerable on this show,
Nicole Hammond: Please.
Kyle Lagunas: Which is one of my dear. So I've, I've been in the business, um, of market research, um, studying innovation cycles in HR and tech and transformation, uh, for about 15 years since I was a baby. Um, and I have some friends that I have known since the beginning. And one of them told me that she has like eight email addresses for me. And I'm like, well, I've moved a lot. I've done a lot. Um, I. Am not one to stay and wait for something to get better. I definitely have, uh, I'm get [00:04:00] professionally impatient and um, definitely am frequently ing out on my own to make, um, to make things work the way that I want them to, which is why I'm not coming out to be on the practitioner side full time.
It is just. It's earned me, uh, uh, truly I have earned, it has earned me a lot of admiration for the folks who do. but the hiring happy hour part is that I think especially these days, I, and I, I know that the, uh, the job market has been more constricted. Um, last year. It looks like things are opening up this year.
Nicole Hammond: Hopeful.
Kyle Lagunas: would just like to say that we should all be protecting our peace in one way or another. I have been privileged enough to be able to say, I'm outta here and gone to do something else, including starting my own business. Um, You know, but I definitely think that we need to make sure that we are following our passion and following our hearts.
Um, and I mean that in the most practical, non aspirational. Non sign on a [00:05:00] wall way, um, is trust your gut. Um, especially with AI these days, our gut is gonna get way more important. So yeah, I think that's fine. It's just follow where wherever you go.
Nicole Hammond: So as we think about the world today and you doing mission-driven work and helping these people, you are just coaching them to follow their gut.
Kyle Lagunas: Yeah, I mean, um, I, I'll give you an example that actually anchors in recruiting. Um, so when I was on the practitioner side, one of major vulnerabilities in the operation was we didn't have, set KPIs for, our inbound functions. it was just assumed cost for, cost like for advertising jobs and for the people in the seats like sourcers and marketers and events, like especially a lot of campus. and that leaves you vulnerable if you can't demonstrate how you are making an impact. [00:06:00] Then when the business comes to cut, You know, you, are really, you've got a big target on your back. My gut told me that there were KPIs that we could find. That we could control, we could control and own, and that would help us feel a little bit better, better partners to the TA teams that needed to actually hire and better partners to, our sponsors in the business who wanted us to show up to every campus event that had their alma mater, right. so we decided to own interview quality talent. We were going to drive enough inbound leads to get us interviews. That was the only thing that the sourcing and attraction team could really do is get folks that the business was willing to talk to, that the recruiters were willing to submit, and that became our KPI.
And so it was a lot easier than I didn't have to attribute from an event hires because. that's tough, right but instead I could yeah, but I could say [00:07:00] that, You know, like 60% of our booth traffic was interview quality talent and that felt a lot better, and it was real. So
Nicole Hammond: I like that because I love it. I love it because it's something where as we think about. What are good KPIs? Interviews is always one, but quality interviews takes it a step further and to your point, right? You have to find a way to define what success looks like. And for every organization it could be different, but it sounds with this situation and how much they were doing, that was definitely a number.
And we talked about our girl math, keeping it simple, uh, and that's a number that you can get to, right? So I love that. I think the other part of this follow your gut. Um, that you may not attribute to all the lessons that you've shared with others and help that you've provided them, is that you're a trusted advisor, right?
You're honest, you're real, but you also have the data and experience to back up the why and, and to kind of put your own KPIs in place, right? You're Kyle PIs, [00:08:00] your Kyle PIs, we're gonna call him Kyle.
Kyle Lagunas: no, never. You know, I actually really appreciate that. Um, because, um, so when I was getting, when I was prepping with my team for the, for this, uh, conversation, which I did, because I take all these very seriously. I don't wanna just show up and like hope I land the plane. Um, they told me to just go ham and advocate for myself.
And I'm like, I'm not good at that. Like, I, I don't have receipts on me. Um, but um, I do think that, um. Part of that self-awareness, like it, you can't have just gut, You know, that's, that's where you start to get brash and abrasive and not helpful. Um, I do think that my instincts are driven by. A connection to what matters and what we need. Um, trying, maybe it comes with being a middle child. I've grew up navigating very opposing points of view, and finding a path through not, not keeping [00:09:00] everybody happy. Um, yeah, I think that, um, trust is something that, um, oftentimes it, it's, um, it's a vulnerable place to be,
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Kyle Lagunas: It's a, it's a place of, I don't wanna say privilege in the, um, like traditional sense, but it is definitely something I, I like burden is of the wrong word, but I
Nicole Hammond: Accountability.
Kyle Lagunas: You know? Yeah, yeah. Um, it's a fragile trust is very fragile, but we are finding in the AI age and trust is literally critical. Um, and, um, yeah, I think that for myself, um, being able to, um. Speak with authority and to, to, um, be direct, um, and to really lean into maybe being wrong, but having a point of view has helped me earn trust with the people who are nervous about getting something wrong, um, or not being quite right. Um, it helps you as an advisor to be able [00:10:00] to. I don't know, play out different scenarios with them.
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Kyle Lagunas: I think, is, there's, in ra it's a, a, a scarce resource these days, And so I'm happy to naturally have plenty.
Nicole Hammond: Yes, yes. No, I, I feel you. I think, um, having been in the implementation role and consultant role in a prior life at Deloitte. I think what makes you a trusted advisor is a bit of balance, right? Not only are you vulnerable, but you're not always saying yes, and you're not always saying no, but you're explaining no, but here's why or no, and have you thought about it this way, right?
So
Kyle Lagunas: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Hammond: of helping them to creatively navigate to a good place, but also. Bringing them awareness of those aha moments that they've not thought about. I think that is the best part of a trusted advisor is those little tidbits that they add that you may not have even thought about. And from you, Kyle, in my experience, uh, both as you and an an as an analyst and just, You know, [00:11:00] at conferences, I think.
What I do admire is you provide those, right, those aha moments. And that is part of also where the gut almost instills to trust you a little more because You know you're going to give them not only the map of how to get from point A to B, but to look out for the dangerous trolls in this area and the, You know, venomous spiders in this area.
And I'm taking this to a Candyland version, but You know what I mean?
Kyle Lagunas: Uh, You know, honestly, it, it comes to mind. I think that the best recruiters, the best talent acquisition leaders do the same. We are, not innately yes, people, we, we are delivery functions. We do have to deliver. but I think that we need to know the constraints. Of our teams, the constraints of the business, the constraints of the market. We are solutions people, and solutions people are not just yes people, right? And so, um, I think that, uh, like, yeah, my, I have a strong instinct that drives a lot of my recommendations, but those [00:12:00] instincts are. Anchored in experience and research and like meaningful analysis. In fact, I'm, I, um, so my day job is not just to chitty chat, although it is fun. Um, but is it, it's market research. Um, And so we, we are studying innovation cycles, um, in enterprise tech, hr, tech, and transformation. I love talent. Talent is where I have. Lived for a long time. Um, and, um, I have just, I'm wrapping up literally today, a, research project with a client. They wanted us to run a focus group to test some hypotheses that they have around ai, in talent acquisition. And I pulled together a crew of some pretty serious TA leaders and operators, You know, experienced with tech and innovation. And, the feedback from the client was they didn't get what they wanted. We were spending too much time in the weeds and we talked about the wrong things. And [00:13:00] I'm a middle child, so I'm also very sensitive.
I'm like, don't yell at me. but You know, honestly, I was like, no, I, am sorry that you are disappointed or that you feel that way. but I'm gonna spend a hell of a lot of time on this writeup to help you understand like really happened and like what you, what this produced a lot of insight that you actually do need.
And my job as their solution provider is to help them find, like, of those pieces what really does work. Um, You know, and I think that, think about some of my favorite recruiters. They love to find that diamond in a rough. You know, they love to advocate for something that's not obvious. Um, I do find that in my advisory work, I'm doing a lot of that.
If, if the answers were obvious, then chat, GPT and Gemini would've took me at, taken me outta business already. But instead, it is in actually looking at what they didn't like or what didn't resonate. What didn't land. [00:14:00] that is where a lot of the work, the real work is. Um, it's not hard to sound smart and to have some cute ideas. It's really hard to help a, a really challenging client with a, with a major body of work on, like, on their plate, helping them find, um, the path forward, which isn't always as clean and, um, clear as they might want you to make it for them.
Nicole Hammond: That's interesting because I think a lot of people would take that feedback and walk away, right? And just say, okay, thank you. But I appreciate your approach in saying, Hey. Let, let's solution this together. Let's formulate this in a way that you will understand it. Or perhaps a few months down the line you'll reference it because, You know, then it is relevant.
Uh, and you brought up the topic of ai. So I'm going there because I do think that you are one of the experts, um, in this, especially for TA and hr, [00:15:00] as we look to the future and we look at, You know, 91% of companies are using ai, but. 63% of 'em aren't prepared. And this is where Kyle and Co comes in. This is where advisory and solutioning come in, right?
What is our strategy? What are we looking to achieve? What are those KPIs, if we wanna go back to 'em. But it's the in-between that we need to help them define right? And, and what's manageable. Um, and we're still learning, as you've shared with me, we're still learning.
Kyle Lagunas: Oh, we are just beginning to learn. Um, I think that what is different is, so again, I've, I've been doing research in the space for 15 years. demoed a product today that is probably less than a year old, and it looks richer than some of the product, the same products that have been in business since I started my job. It is crazy how fast technology is moving today. And it is imp interesting to see how organizations are moving faster than they normally would, [00:16:00] but it ain't enough.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Kyle Lagunas: We just cannot keep up with this, You know? It, it is just moving too fast. Um, but what is interesting to me is people are starting to wise up and, and this is a, a, a drum that I am beating. Um. That you used to say, what are you guys doing in ai? And their, their mentality is like, oh, what am I, what pilots am I running in? What tools have I bought? What features have I turned on? And so I would always hear from my friends like, ah, we're, actually a pretty risk averse company And so we're, really not doing much.
We're kind of just focused on. Building AI literacy within HR and the business, and we are cleaning up all of our data and our legacy systems to get ready for ai. And we're really building in integrations between our systems and processes. And I'm like. Babe, are getting AI ready, like you are doing AI work.
Not the tools and the pilots. It's, that is what we are finding is like I, talk about AI lately. [00:17:00] my job is, I, don't really like just find all the cool hip new use cases, although that is a fun part. it's a fun part of the job, You know, but, really I'm helping, like I'm talking about AI is transforming, like it's really catalyzing some transformation. A lot of this work needed to be done anyway. We did need to get more tech literate as functions as like HR and talent professionals. We did need better, like. Governance for our decision making and
Our technology. we did need to have, we did need to disposition the 6 million candidates sitting in recs that are four years old.
You know, like, all of this, stuff that we are doing now to get AI ready needed to be done. and I think it's been encouraging. For folks to know that AI readiness and AI transformation isn't just running out and buying the, coolest next thing, um, it is doing a lot of maintenance and hygiene work that [00:18:00] you can be doing, like regardless of the company size and like executive mandate, it's stuff that everybody can be doing.
Nicole Hammond: So risk averse or not risk averse. I think I would love to hear from you what are the key drivers to be AI ready, right? Like, as you think about this, there's tons that can be done, but some people don't even know where to start. They don't know what to focus on. They don't know like how much to take on at once.
Uh, what can you advise them?
Kyle Lagunas: So, um, in our research, we, have identified that there are three different dimensions of momentum. So I would say at the highest level, you need to think about momentum. because AI is not mature yet. We, literally are in like chapter two of Gen ai and we're like in the, like, Prelude of agentic we need to be building momentum. You need to be doing something. You need to be making some motions to just, whether it's getting ready for AI or [00:19:00] testing out different use cases. We need to be doing something meaningful things. And we look at three dimensions of momentum. The first is posture. What are you saying that you are going to do and what are is, are you organizationally ready to do in terms of like governance and risk? So what is my posture when it comes to ai? You might have an executive that's going out and, uh, and telling CS or M-S-N-B-C. Or CNBC what, whatever news network. Um, we're going all in on AI and You know, and, and we're gonna let, like, and then we're gonna lay off 40% of our employees and then we're not gonna lose any efficiency.
And it's like HR is like, hi, would somebody tell me how this is supposed to happen? You know? Um, And so in that, in that example, because HR doesn't have any budget, You know, they've
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Kyle Lagunas: Their tech spend and yada yada,
Nicole Hammond: Admin tasks gone.
Kyle Lagunas: Yeah, with magic wand. Um, but in that example, the post, like the posture is like the strategy, strategic, [00:20:00] uh, uh, uh, voice is strong.
We're going all in. But then actually there is no real infrastructure. There really
Nicole Hammond: No plan.
Kyle Lagunas: Clear guidance on
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Kyle Lagunas: To accomplish. So that's one dimension. Um, and you can look at it at the organizational level or, or within your own team in HR talent. You also have other things like literacy. I think capability is the second dimension capability.
So I do need to have literacy. I do need to have some, like the just foundational pieces like systems and processes integrated. My data needs to be clean, and ready for ai. So that's the third or the second. And then the third is investment. You need to have resources, You know, that doesn't just mean dollars, although usually it does require. Some dedicated budget for these kinds of programs. It means having like specialized skills in your team. Everyone needs to be AI literate. You do still need to have some AI experts as well.
Nicole Hammond: Okay.
Kyle Lagunas: [00:21:00] Um, and then I think there's also just having, um, um, in that space, like having dedicated program managers and partnerships within the organization to help you really get things done.
So, um, posture, capability. And investment are the three. And I, I think it's like trying to, for any organization's trying to understand like. What problem do I need to solve with AI is the beginning of any of that conversation. And then with that problem in mind, it's like, what is my strategic posture? What are my capabilities to execute on that? And what kind of investment do I have to support that? Like us solving this problem, getting oriented around that, uh, with those three, I think is something anybody can do. Whether you are an HR manager, like team of one. Or you are the CHO of an a 3000 person HR organization. The workflow is the same. It's [00:22:00] just the depth of work that needs to get done.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think it's fascinating 'cause as you're talking about this, I'm going through examples in my head where we as a company have implemented AI for, uh, all employees to use. Um, and I was part of the team that did the business case and originally we. Had a tool that we were only going to use for r and d.
Um, basically it searched all of your knowledge banks and provided you out information, whereas you would have to search all of those different separately. But we made the business case for the entire organization to use it. Um, and funny enough, we made a stronger financial business case of savings for Go-to-market.
Uh, lo and behold, we've gone through what you've said, right? We posture, we went. We presented it to the CFO, we said, we are confident that this will help us and save us all hours and indirectly dollars. And then to your point around just looking at the other components, we had three advocates or three different types of individuals [00:23:00] within the organization, across hr, Go-to-market r and d, that we're responsible for the change management, the implementation, et cetera.
Then last piece is we just came back to look at the metrics and ongoing adoption, enablement, et cetera, and we have over 70% adoption of this AI tool, and every day it gets smarter and we are getting smarter with it, but it doesn't necessarily replace us as individuals. Sure, it may have saved some headcount if you add up all the dollars, but what I find fascinating about it as you've gone through that is we didn't have.
That guidance, those pillars. Right. But indirectly, we knew based on implementation or being a tech company of what we needed to look at. Sure. We probably skipped a few steps. I, I will admit, right, like there were some integrations that weren't product ties that we could have used day one versus day. 70.
But you get there. You get there. And uh, I [00:24:00] think it's fascinating because now if I were to go out to advise on that tool, I would advise that aha moment of make sure your integrations that you need are productized and if you don't have them, make sure you plan for them in the budget, right.
Kyle Lagunas: I, yeah, I mean, I think that, so it brings to mind though, like. A, I love when real life experience is validating my research. 'cause I'm not just sitting here crunching survey data and You know, thinking up like cool operating models. Um, I am studying what's actually getting done And so. I feel weird when people call me an AI expert because I'm really not.
I'm like, I do, You know what I mean? Like, I am just observing what's really happening and what's really working, You know? And so I'm almost like a steward of AI expertise and best practice. I'm, I'm really not. never [00:25:00] vibe coded anything, You know, and I haven't implemented at scale. Um, and You know, so, I'm glad that you shared that success story 'cause it is a good opportunity to remind everybody that no one has all the answers.
We're all learning. Even myself, who is sharing what I am observing across the board is working I'm, I'm can just observe at this level. I think, um, everyone, one, one thing that's been really, really neat over the last year. Is seeing how much more serious every practitioner, whether it's they're an IC or they're an an executive leader, how much more serious they're taking their networking opportunities and their learning opportunities. We're all like getting out from under the work and we're like, wait, what are you actually doing? How is this actually working for you?
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Kyle Lagunas: and I'm, that, that's what I've been spending my time there is like sitting in that room and listening, listening, listening really hard. because we've, we've still got a lot to learn.
Nicole Hammond: You're right. I, I, again, [00:26:00] self-awareness. I hadn't thought about it, but I am definitely learning more in the past year, and I think it may not necessarily be directly to ai, but because of ai, right. Being curious and having to understand foundationally this new world, but then also what are the trends, what is future forward?
What are people thinking? Then just relating that to your own organization, to your own personal life, what to leverage, what maybe not also with children, what to, what to protect from. So there's so many different angles with this, but it's fascinating because I do feel what you're saying about people open to learning more, taking more time to, to communicate and just hear.
Uh, which is good. Which is great. Well.
Kyle Lagunas: It's definitely way cooler than what was big trend when I started, which was cloud.
Nicole Hammond: Ooh,
Kyle Lagunas: Who the hell cares.
Nicole Hammond: but what are we gonna say in 10 years? Then we're gonna be like, remember [00:27:00] AI
Kyle Lagunas: No, I'm really hoping that in 10 years that all these agents and bots are doing it all. And you and I are just sipping on my ties,
Nicole Hammond: Ah,
Kyle Lagunas: letting our AI agents do the work.
Nicole Hammond: at you. Look at you. Pivoting us to the good stuff.
Kyle Lagunas: ready. Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: No. Um, last thing I wanna say, and then I want everyone to learn more about you, Kyle, because you are an amazing human. 36% of companies consider themselves operational ready for ai. And so not only does Kyle and Co have a huge opportunity out there to help organizations that are ready, but I think all of us should look at the organization we work for or our own company.
And just evaluate, is this an opportunity for you to have a partner in crime to help advise you and help solution what might be feasible for your company to digest as it relates to ai or even validate what you're thinking? So, um, don't stray far. We're, we're gonna learn more, but I think this is a great [00:28:00] foundational methodology to think about as you explore the world of ai.
Uh, Kyle, I wanna learn about you. So middle child, fascinating to me. I have one of those. And, and all the things you're saying are definitely resonating, but what has driven Kyle to this amazing career of being on many sides, uh, both analyst, customer, et cetera. Uh, what's your personal happy hour? What, what makes you smile?
Kyle Lagunas: I care. I
Nicole Hammond: Oh.
Kyle Lagunas: So much, genuinely. Um, to be so funny to like, I would just roll my eyes when I would be watching a fireside and they were like, oh, what keeps you up at night? And 'cause I would be an individual contributor. I'm like, nothing. A really good book. Um, You know,
Nicole Hammond: Binge watching,
Kyle Lagunas: I, I'm actually into bed rotting these days, is
Nicole Hammond: huh?
Kyle Lagunas: Call it.
Nicole Hammond: Oh,
Kyle Lagunas: [00:29:00] Um, but no, I mean, genuinely I care so much. I love. This work right now because it is really like the culmination of such a backlog of change and, support and resourcing for HR and talent teams. And I just feel like this is just a catalytic moment for us. And I'm just like, I love being here. I can't tell you how much I care about my, clients, yes.
But then also just the people in my network who I'm learning from. and I. Having sat, You know, and, I appreciated the intro. It was a very rich one, but I do want to call out, like having sat in the analyst seat for a long time. You're on the sidelines, you're just observing all the time.
And, I had to wonder like, what does an analyst actually know if you've never done any of this, You know? And so I did go to the solution side and thought well, I'll join a company that's building really cool tech and selling to really high [00:30:00] performing teams and like I'll, learn about how we are solving the problem with tech.
And you get over there, you're like. Oh, there's actually still a lot of, stuff to solve for. The tech is not the solution, is what I learned there. And so I'm like, okay, well then You know what, I'll go to the practitioner side and then I'll, be able to close the gap on that side. And you're like, oh my God.
There's a whole other bucket of stuff to solve for, You know? And so now that I'm here, it's like back in the analyst seat, back in the research and advisory side. I just. Have this fire, like I just want to help solve these, like help us get the answers. not come up with like cool taglines and just like, help people sell software and yada yada.
Like, I really want us to figure this out. Like this AI like revolution is we, either. I do think there will be winners and losers, and I am determined to make sure that HR and talent wins. and yeah, [00:31:00] I hope you don't mind me being so dorky, but I love, I care about this so much. That's who I am.
Nicole Hammond: Uh, I, I think that's very special, and I think that's important, right? This is a time where we need people that care and personally invest in the success, but also stick around long enough to see it, right? So many consultants, advisors come in. They hear a strategy, they put a recommendation or plan in place and they walk away and they never stay to see what happens.
And I don't see that with Kyle. I don't see that with Kyle and Co. And so I see that you care.
Kyle Lagunas: us 'cause we ain't going nowhere,
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. Kyle and stuck with us. Yes.
Kyle Lagunas: Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: No, but it's great.
Kyle Lagunas: And codependent.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. We're just gonna keep going. No, uh, I, I see it and I think others see it. And those with a good gut see it. So, uh, that is a [00:32:00] really cool answer and thank you.
Thank you for sharing. Now we're gonna go to my favorite, favorite, favorite part, which is this or that. Uh, have you played.
Kyle Lagunas: I, now I know what it is, and now that you ask me about it, I see it everywhere.
Nicole Hammond: Okay.
Kyle Lagunas: Yeah,
Nicole Hammond: Yeah,
Kyle Lagunas: it on me, sister.
Nicole Hammond: sorry. It's coming up on your, the, on your IG as now all these
Kyle Lagunas: I know.
Nicole Hammond: say it into your phone. Okay. So we've got some fun ones I've added, but some basic ones as well. Uh, you are welcome to answer. You are welcome to expand. You are welcome to say both. Uh, again, choose your own adventure. This is our Candyland version, um, resume or LinkedIn profile.
Kyle Lagunas: LinkedIn
Nicole Hammond: Speed to hire or quality of hire.
Kyle Lagunas: quality.
Nicole Hammond: Love it. Candidates. Optimizing for AI or AI optimizing for candidates.
Kyle Lagunas: Oh my God. Um, I think that the latter is a [00:33:00] doom is doomed. Um, I think that there's only so much that AI can do for candidate behavior. I, and I'm sorry to give you a long-winded answer, but you told me I could.
Nicole Hammond: Yes.
Kyle Lagunas: I think that, uh, candidates need to be optimizing for ai and I think that employers need to be taking a stronger stance in delivering guidance to, to candidates on how we expect them to how we don't want them to.
Nicole Hammond: Yep. Yeah. Almost part of some of the legislation that we're seeing that you need to include as well. So I'm with you.
Kyle Lagunas: Yeah, that's fine. Like there's that, but like, do you remember when, uh, uh, remember when we didn't have webcams and video interviewing was a new thing
Nicole Hammond: Yes.
Kyle Lagunas: Like there was so much enablement for, from the best companies, the best stories you hear, they would say, here's how this works and this is what you should be prepared for.
This is what you shouldn't do. And You know,
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Kyle Lagunas: Stuff needs to be happening with AI and I'm not seeing it
Nicole Hammond: And those happy hours where we talked about all the things that we, those career limiting moments that people had with webcams, right?
Kyle Lagunas: [00:34:00] Oh God,
Nicole Hammond: We won't go there. Alright. Find me or find you.
Kyle Lagunas: Find me. I'm so easy to find. If you wanna connect, find me, girl.
Nicole Hammond: Yes. Uh, career path or whatever comes my way.
Kyle Lagunas: Whatever comes my way. Hello. 17 email addresses in 15 years.
Nicole Hammond: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Kyle Lagunas: to the dress.
Nicole Hammond: Talent intelligence or gut instinct,
Kyle Lagunas: Okay, well, I'm gonna look like a hypocrite now. But you can't have gut if you don't have data. Like you gotta have the receipt sunny. It can't be like he said, or she said like, so
Nicole Hammond: do you.
Kyle Lagunas: The, bring the intel. L
Nicole Hammond: Do You know what's so funny is I put this in here before you even said go with your gut at the beginning. And when you said that, I was like, oh my gosh. Did he know like mental minds connected? Mental minds connected, um, ATS as a system of record or system of [00:35:00] intelligence.
Kyle Lagunas: Um, it, it has to, it has to be both. It genuinely does. Um, I mean, you, it's, there are plenty of systems that can generate some really interesting insights. If it's not rooted in reality, if it's not anchored in your, your system of truth, then it's, who knows how much of it is, is reliable and trustworthy and usable.
Nicole Hammond: Yes.
Kyle Lagunas: Has to be both. I'm really. God, I didn't know that question was coming, but I am very much looking forward to conducting an assessment of ATSs this year. 'cause I wanna know how the hell these things have evolved or not because we're at a really interesting point.
Nicole Hammond: Agreed. And I want to see that data,
Kyle Lagunas: Yeah,
Nicole Hammond: uh, reward or recognition.
Kyle Lagunas: Ooh. Reward, gimme. I'm like, it's one of my, it's one of my, I'm not a words of affirmation person. I'm a, uh, acts service person.
Nicole Hammond: Oh, that's your love language, huh? Okay. Good to know. Good to know. See, I'm words
Kyle Lagunas: [00:36:00] Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: Good. Manage.
Kyle Lagunas: Great,
sweetie. thanks. Good manager or fun job.
Oh, good Manager.
Nicole Hammond: Love it. Love it.
Kyle Lagunas: get you through anything.
Nicole Hammond: Four day, work week or work remote.
Kyle Lagunas: Work remote.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. Its the world
Kyle Lagunas: working when I'm off anyway. Like,
Nicole Hammond: I,
Kyle Lagunas: not toxically, but You know.
Nicole Hammond: yes, yes, I do. I do. I.
Kyle Lagunas: know why? Because I'm in like my slippers right now. So
Nicole Hammond: it. That couch does look really comfy behind you, by the way.
Kyle Lagunas: Thanks.
Nicole Hammond: Ah, all right. Last one. My favorite one. Spirits, wine or beer.
Kyle Lagunas: Oh, I'm not gonna choose summertime. Wintertime, fall, vacation, camping, the, there's just too many things, You know?
Nicole Hammond: Yes, yes.
Kyle Lagunas: so sometimes you can have it all. And usually that is an alcohol [00:37:00] thing.
Nicole Hammond: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Well, yes, next time we see each other we will have to have something and cheers because this has been delightful. Uh, you are such a good human, um, and I know your word, you're not words of affirmation, but I will tell you I am really excited for what you and Brandis and others are doing, Kyle and Co.
Is. Amazing organizations. Um, and we can't wait to see the journey. It means a lot. Tell people
where they can find you.
Kyle Lagunas: Kyle and co.com honey, and literally if there are any recruiters on this podcast, they've already found me, babe.
Nicole Hammond: This is more for the people, right? We just wanna.
Kyle Lagunas: I'm on link, I'm on LinkedIn. Like that is, I'm, I'm so, so pathetic. I literally log in every day when I'm having my morning coffee to see what's going on.
Nicole Hammond: I love it. I love that. That's great. Um, thank you again, Kyle. This has been amazing. For all of you listening or watching, if you [00:38:00] watched, hopefully you saw some animation and appreciation, right? Uh, if you are listening, we really hope that you learn something from this. I can't express enough in this world of ai.
Get on board. Come with us on this journey, find your method of momentum and let Kyle and co help you guys. If not, just, just reach out. Reach out. He is a great person to know in the industry and he loves data. So if you love data or you want some data, he's your man. Um, all right, Kyle, thank you again,
Kyle Lagunas: Thanks for having me.
Nicole Hammond: uh, and have an awesome, awesome rest of your week.
And that wraps another episode of Hiring Happy Hour. Thanks for tuning in and for believing like we do that hiring isn't just about filling jobs. It's about the impact we make. To catch more stories and show notes, visit hiring happy hour.com. This episode was brought to you by Smartrecruiters, an SAP company, an AI powered platform for superhuman hiring.
Until next time, stay [00:39:00] curious, stay kind, and keep humanizing hiring. Cheers.