People Analytics is experiencing a midlife crisis.
According to Colby Kennedy Nesbitt, Ph.D., Senior Manager, Employee Listening at Netflix. 1
She came on the show to talk about a few things, including but not limited to me going off on:
The fatal flaw of interviews
Why Quality of Hire is a joke
The only metric that matters
That skills based hiring isn’t a thing
And why companies need to stop copying FAANG People processes
Buckle up, because Colby is hella smart and I appreciate her candor while working within one of the most famous cultures in the world. She used to work at Lattice which is cool, too. A People Analyst working at the People Analytics company.
What I appreciate about Colby is that she’s not precious about the job title she holds, and the company she keeps. She’s pushing the edge of philosophical discourse on the future of a field that’s kinda hard to pin down. People Analytics folks work hard, but when I see them in my LinkedIn feed I sometimes wonder…what is the work that they’re actually talking about doing? So if you too want to know who the CHRO trusts more than you, and how the work they’re doing behind the scenes influences your job directly without ever interacting with them, then come along for the ride.
Recruiters often operate in a silo from People Analytics, but it’s the People Analytics folks that have the attention and ear of the C-Suite. This came up in my previous conversation with Cole Napper, and remains a focus for conversations I’m having with folks that have multiple more degrees than I do. I actually don’t know where my diploma is, but I can say, I barely earned a degree in English…as a first language. The press pass as a journalist and semester clubbing in Australia were worth it though.
If recruiters want to move to becoming strategic talent advisors, they’re going to have to start acting and talking strategically.2 And part of being seen as strategic by the person who will give you a promotion to a job title that sounds like it does more strategic work [talking & thinking] vs. tactical work [doing & sorta thinking] is saying the word “strategy” a lot. You’re also going to need to communicate about your work like a product manager and spend time you don’t want to in your week doing activities that seem self-promoting. It’s okay, though, because in Corporate, self-promotion is referred to as “memo culture”. Also “managing up” is a phrase ancillary to “data-driven” that’s critical to completing strategic work, or at least being perceived as someone who is strategic. Hope this helps as you consider resigning from your job as a Recruiter to become a Strategic Talent Advisor.
The reality is that People Analytics ICs are probs a few steps ahead on this compared to their counterparts in recruiting roles. Recruiters are pretty busy doing recruiting things to have time to talk about the work they’re doing. I get it, it’s hard to do when you’re juggling 20 reqs and closing a candidate at 10:43 PM ET when the candidate in SF just finished dinner with their family and your CHRO says you can only offer mid-band on a 50th percentile role when the devs hired in 2021 are earning 75th percentile with a 11% yields compounding on their $25K signing bonuses. (You did invest your signing bonuses from 2021, right?)
The exception is the baller recruiter in an old SourceCon tee shirt scraping GitHub and going 5:1 on yield ratios for FDEs laughing when they get a DM from an SDR from an AI sourcing platform that’s been in the industry for 37 days. Those folks are untouchable. Let me know if you want intros.
But there’s actually a bridge of that skills gap between recruiting and people analytics that comes from mutually understanding the core work each group in the HR org chart does from first principles thinking. I get shivers even typing the words “HR org chart”…gross.3
The more recruiters are aware of the work People Analytics is doing, and how it’s impacting their mandate top down, the better equipped they’ll become to leapfrog their peers into higher paying roles. (“Make the money, don’t let the money make you.”)4 And the cool part about that which we’re seeing is those higher paying roles up the org chart in recruiting are remaining tactical. Look at industry legend, Erin Wilson of Rox. The middle management layer is collapsing because of the efficiencies and innovation from organizations implementing AI. 5 Or people just realized they were wasting money paying people to talk about the work recruiters were doing? The best recruiters I know don’t need to be managed.
I’m holding off on my opinions on I/O Psychology for now. But as someone who reads essays for leisure, I have a ton to share. If you too enjoy reading things and using your brain to think critically about the work you’re doing so that you remain relevant in your career and don’t become obsolete because you’re not taking responsibility for your own professional development, I highly recommend reading Colby’s writings. If you don’t read long form content, may I ask why?
»Follow Colby on LinkedIn
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Colby, THANK YOU for coming on the show and listening to me rant. And now I guess reading me rant, too. You rock. Keep up the great work.
Timestamps
00:00 Colby Nesbitt on why people analytics needs to reinvent itself
05:00 Why quality of hire may be measuring the wrong thing
09:00 Revenue per employee and the shift from headcount growth to business value
12:00 Why interviews measure ability better than day-to-day motivation
16:00 Tenure, candidate assessment, and why experience is more than a number
20:00 Skills-based hiring, motivation, and looking beyond traditional talent signals
22:00 Why copying Netflix, Google, or another company’s culture isn’t a strategy
29:00 Job hopping, institutional memory, and the changing employment contract
35:00 AI, motivation, and whether we expect too much meaning from our jobs
40:00 Why data can’t replace intuition, judgment, and the human experience
43:00 Why the future of recruiting may look more like executive search
Looking for a best fall conference to attend?
I’m thrilled to be joining forces with Workday for “The Future of Frontline Summit” where 600+ Senior Leaders across HR, HR IT, and Operations across frontline industries will gather before Workday Rising.
Frontline workers make up 80% of the global workforce, and Workday is putting them front and center. By bringing Paradox and their Workforce Management tech together, they are hosting the Future of Frontline Summit on October 12th at Resorts World Las Vegas.
I’ll be there because frontline hiring is where I got my start in the recruiting industry, and technology like Paradox empowers the hiring process for frontline managers. This is the innovation the industry needs right now. I’ll be recording from the floor, so be sure to tune in to the stories I’m stoked to share. Attending? Be sure to say hi. I’ll be the guy with the camera.
When: Monday, October 12 | 10:30 AM - 4:00 PM
Where: Resorts World, Las Vegas (Right before Workday Rising)
https://www.shrm.org/enterprise-solutions/insights/new-era-of-recruiting-becoming-best-strategic-talent-advisor
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-10-22-gartner-unveils-top-predictions-for-it-organizations-and-users-in-2025-and-beyond
