Ep 717: Building Influence with Data

Data-driven TA has become a bit of a buzzword over the last few years, but tracking metrics isn't the same thing as driving decisions. The best TA leaders don't just report numbers, they connect hiring outcomes to business objectives and transform how their organisations think about talent, so how are they building this influence? Keep listening to Find Out. Support for this podcast comes from Smart Recruiters. Are you looking to supercharge your hiring? Meet Winston. Smart Recruiters AI-powered companion. I've had a demo of Winston that capabilities are extremely powerful, and it's been crafted to elevate hiring to a whole new level. This AI sidekick goes beyond the usual assistant, handling all the time-consuming admin work, so you can focus on connecting with top talent and making better hiring decisions. From screening candidates to scheduling interviews, Winston manages it all with AI precision, keeping the hiring process fast, smart, and effective. Head over to smartrecruiters.com and see how Winston can deliver superhuman results. There's been more of scientific discovery, more of technical advancement and material progress in your lifetime of a mind, and at all the ages of history. Hi there! Welcome to episode number 717, a recruiting feature with me, Matt Older. Recruiting feature is a podcast that helps talent acquisition teams drive measurable impact by developing their strategic capability in foresight, influence, talent, and technology. This episode is all about influence. The importance of data is universally recognized in talent acquisition, but the real opportunity lies in going past basic metrics and using data to shape business strategies. Forward thinking to A-leaders are moving beyond operational dashboards to connect hiring decisions with business outcomes like revenue generation and team performance. This shift requires not just better metrics, but a fundamental change in how we communicate value in the organisation. The challenge is that many teams remain stuck at the operational level, measuring activity rather than impact. So how can you be more strategic about data and analytics? My guess this week is Leanne Cartelli, founder of a staffing and recruiting agency specialising in Latin American talent. With nearly 20 years working in recruiting and talent acquisition, Leanne brings deep insights into building data-driven TA functions. In our conversation, he shares his framework for evolving TA metrics through three maturity stages and explains how connecting recruiting data to business outcomes transforms organisational influence. I, Leanne, and welcome to the podcast. Hey, Matt, how are you? Good to be here. I'm very good. Thank you. And it is a pleasure to have you on the show. Please could you introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm Leanne Cartelli, based out of Argentina. I know recently from Argentina, I've been in talent acquisition for almost 20 years. Typically, I say more than 15, but it's closer to 20. And I've, I think I've done almost everything. I've done, you know, TA for global companies such as Accenture, regional rules, global rules. I worked for, you know, pharma industry with Beringer Ingoheim, leading TA in Latin America. And then, you know, a few years ago, I moved to the staffing site. So the other side of the counter. And now I have my own staffing and recruiting agency. We've launched about a year ago. And basically, we've focused on helping businesses, primarily in the US and Canada, to hire and stuff remote talent in Latin America. Fantastic stuff. So what do we start there? I mean, tell us a little bit about the Latin American market for talent. What are the challenges that you see there? And how does it compare to other regions that you've worked in and recreated in? Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, we see some of the same challenges. We see everywhere and some that are unique to the region. So first, you know, we definitely see a bit of a skill gap when it comes to some of the immersion text, you know, like AI Cloud. We know, the region tends to be a bit behind the curve. So, you know, for those, you know, for those skills, we find a more difficult in this region to find talent as you would in the US or Europe, for example, despite of the fact that there's two is a bit of a, you know, in the man and supply challenge for those type of profiles. So I would say that's definitely a big challenge in the region. Not for your traditional tech profiles or other, you know, marketing and, you know, HR finance, but definitely for those immersion skills. The second, I would say, it's pretty fine. Depending on the countries, right? If you don't know where to go, you're going to find some basic challenges like, you know, infrastructure, you know, internet connection or connectivity, and English proficiency, right? So there are some countries where, you know, you find those maybe basic challenges. So you definitely need to go, no where to go to find talent. And I, you know, that's a big challenge. I typically see a lot of companies do. They don't know the market or the region. And so they go to any country. They think it's the same. And they hire someone and, you know, that person has, you know, unstable internet. And that's just, you know, you give that for granted. It's basic, but, you know, in some countries, it's not. The other big thing I would say is, you know, there is, it's definitely a candidate driven market, right? And that's happened over the last many years. And I would say, you know, one of the biggest reasons is because we see a lot of new sharing and of sharing, you know, particularly from the US, of course. Some of the main countries like Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, they're seeing such significant growth of new sharing. And so you have local businesses and, you know, global businesses competing for talent here. And so, you know, the leverage has moved into the candidate side. And, you know, you also find some retention challenges connected to that, right? Because there's such high demand and so much competition that people tend to move sometimes. So it's very important to have the right retention strategies there. I think those are the main challenges. As compared to other regions, I would say, you know, on the candidate side, and, you know, and the power being on the other side, we definitely see some ghosting here in Latin. But I think that's a common trend we've seen, you know, in a lot of places, unfortunately. We do have, you know, I think US and Europe struggle more with extended time to higher time to feel. Whereas in Latin, you can move a lot faster. And then the third one, I would say, maybe comparing to another region, maybe, you know, Asia, India, for example, there's larger temples. But, you know, they do have challenges that Latin doesn't have such as, you know, we have time zone alignment and the local cultural alignment. And, you know, whereas for India or some other countries in that region, you struggle with that, right? I suppose you should drill down a little bit there into the skills part of this. Is there kind of a different availability of different skills in different countries? Are there any countries that are particularly good for any sort of particular in demand skills? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I would say, for example, so for any anything in tech, right? So let me just make it broad-based tech. You should go to Argentina, Colombia, Brazil. Mexico as well, but a bit less. And then, you know, for example, Brazil is really strong on cyber security, cyber security, right? So there is those nuances. I typically, you know, when I advise when it comes to tech market, I typically advise, you know, those three countries. And I always share that there is, when companies come to higher in Latin America, one of the biggest drivers is cost, right? And so, you know, because the core of the conversations are based on that, you're not going to find significant gaps when it comes to those skills, but you're definitely going to find bigger gaps when it comes to the cost. And so you're, it might take a bit longer, but you're going to find the chance you need, you know, in Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil. But it's going to be more cost-efficiency in Colombia and Argentina, for example. Then I would say, you know, the outside of tech, you know, again, the emerging skills, AI, cloud, those are tough in any single one of these markets. Cyber security, I always talk about Brazil. And then outside of tech, for example, you have anything that's marketing, you have, for example, in Argentina, huge hub of marketing talent. There is certain areas of marketing like growth, mobile, you know, performance that are typically harder to find in other countries, but you do find it. a lot in Argentina. And then I would say, you know, for anything that sales, you know, BDRs, SDRs, account executives and managers, you know, Argentina and Colombia are really strong, but especially Colombia. You know, they have a huge pool. There's been a lot of outsourcing of sales and commercial functions there. And so you typically find, you know, a lot of good talent. And especially I'm strong in English, right? They have really good language skills. In Argentina, as well, Brazil, as well, Mexico, as well. I think what sets Colombia sometimes in beta parties, you know, when it comes to sales, they have, you know, a closer accent to the US, or they, you know, they can make it sound more native. Whereas maybe, you know, there's amazing English skills in Argentina. But sometimes you can hear the accent, maybe like you hear mine. And so, you know, when it comes to sales, people feel more comfortable with more of a native speaker in that sense, right? And so Colombia tends to be a bit stronger in that. So you've mentioned a few things that employers here were recruiting, you know, across borders into the Latin region should be aware of there. What other advice would you give to people who are looking to kind of, you know, recruit across borders? Yeah, I think there's four or five things and for this one, I'll try to keep it short on sweet, right? To make sure that I give all these advice. So the first one is, I would say, invest in local intelligence, right? So we talked about the difference in each country, right? So make sure that you understand that, right? The culture, the, you know, the education system, the, you know, the compensation, you know, understanding local, you know, the region and local markets, it's going to help understand, you know, where you need to go. I think that's number one. I think connected to that, number two is maybe start with staffing. That's going to make it easier to make the move. And then eventually, as you learn about the market, understand the talent, you can make some, you know, longer term decisions and, you know, start hiring direct, but it's a good way to start, right? And then I would say prioritize time zone and language skills. That's definitely going to boost productivity. It's going to boost integration. It's going to enable better collaboration. And so I definitely think that's a priority when when thinking about, you know, recruiting across borders, out of showing. And then the last, the last two, I think, a lot of times when companies think about off-sharing or, you know, recruiting across borders, you know, there are many times thinking about, well, you know, it's going to be super cheap and super easy and just, you know, I'm going to save a lot of money, which, yes, of course, but making sure that, you know, that you do have a competitive compensation, that you offer benefits, that you consider, you know, that you consider that you're not just saving money, but, you know, you're giving people opportunities and and and ensure that those opportunities are really good. It's going to help you find the best talent and it's going to have a really big impact to your business. So just, you know, making sure that that what you offer is competitive, especially, you know, in terms of the local market, right? Because and that connects to having the local intelligence and then making sure that you offer up-skilling opportunities growth, right? That's going to also help retain people because if now you're going to hire someone across borders, they're going to leave after six months or 12 months. You're going to have a big problem there because, of course, it's a big investment in many senses and so making sure that you you give those opportunities to talent, even if it's across borders and investing in integrating the organic, integrating them in the organization and making sure that they feel part of your company that's going to have a huge impact in their performance and their tenure and the value they add, right? And so I think there's just, you know, part of the organization as much as anyone, only other seeding some some rules and, you know, and having that understanding and making that investment is going to have a big impact in, you know, the results that you have. You mentioned this very much at Canada, market. One of the things that consistently seems to be an issue in every country at the moment is the quality of Canada experience. Why do you think the Canada experience gets neglected so often? It's crazy, right? And I still, to be honest, I feel as an industry, we've been talking about this for so many years. I need to steal a problem. But I still, you know, I believe there's a couple of things that we've seen consistently over the last many, many years and that hasn't changed, right? I think there is probably three or four things that are, you know, the main drivers for this. When I think, you know, T8 teams got used to unfortunately to operate with, you know, a lack of the right resources or bandwidth, right? Recruiters tend to be switched super, stretched super, super thin, you know, manage a super high volume of requisitions. We typically see that, you know, and we saw that, you know, during and after the pandemic, right? When you see organizations move to, you know, to to challenging times, typically you see a freezing hiring or even decreasing volume. The first thing that, you know, that, you know, that is done is they swing down teams. And then when you see the man spike, they need to rehire. And so those cycles tend to hurt T8 teams a lot and you never have the right, right? Keep up with this. And even through those process, then organizations try to capture efficiencies and optimization, which is great. But then, you know, we limit the resources when it comes to not only, you know, bandwidth of recruiters, you know, at the scale of teams, but also, you know, what you invest in terms of the technology to support them in terms of, you know, the employer brand, right? Which we know it's going to back directly their ability to act like that. And then, you know, that that tends to cascade to about experience for candidates because you have a recruiter has to manage, you know, 20 reps, you know, so many candidates in each rate, right? 10, 20, whatever candidates, you know, huge flow of applications, the business pushing and pressing. And they just can get around that, right? And so I think one big part is, you know, they've done, you know, all four Tantuction teams, you know, for the most part, they don't have, you know, they're not giving the right resources, or many times, you know, they don't have the right scale and structure to be able to live your a good candidate experience. The second, I think, it's always, you know, process, process related. So, you know, a lot of times processes are inefficient. For many reasons, right? I think, many times TATMs are so involved in delivery that they don't take a post to think strategically about how their process are the sign-in. So they're not really fit for purpose, you know, either too many stages or the ATA's, ATS, not really designed to be fit for, you know, for that process. Now, the business, many times not educated and this, you know, goes to the third point. I think, many times it's not, you know, TA, but it's really the business organization, the hiring managers, right? They don't provide detailed feedback. They, you know, they're late with their responses. And so, you know, they might respond for a good candidate or what they think it's a good candidate, you know, a good feed, but then for the rest, maybe they don't provide feedback, or maybe the feedback is this person's standard feed. And, you know, and why, right? What, what is, you know, what do we tell this person that just went through, you know, three interviews and a deep assessment? And, you know, I think that, you know, that's a big piece. I think a lot of times, recruiters and talent teams, just don't have the support and don't get what they need to the business. And I think, you know, it's a bit on the business, but it's also a bit on us, right? We need to educate them, we need to invest a time and we need leadership sponsorship to make that happen, right? And many times also, it's, you know, for us as a function, we struggle in communicating appropriately to the business, the impact that they have. And, you know, we just, you know, as an industry, we need to start talking, you know, talk business language, right? Don't talk talent language. And, you know, just explain that, you know, how, for example, the, you know, the candidate experience, it's going to impact whether, you know, maybe someone continues to buy your products or not, or the quality of the hire that's going to translate into performance and their high revenue. And so I think some of those conversations were not having us, so we're not really getting what we need from the business, which then translates, of course, into a bad candidate experience because we, you know, for example, we don't have the feedback, right? And that's awful for a candidate that just went through, you know, four or five, six hours of a process and they don't know why they're not moving forward. Yeah, 100%. And you kind of bring up some interesting points there. So as we know, T.A. teams are being squeezed in terms of resources, but, you know, at the same time, they're not necessarily getting the buy-in and support that they need. And the function is very much changing with, with technology and all those, all those kind of things. So one of the sort of key parts of this is, is data in terms of what T.A. teams look at how they measure their success, how they communicate that to the rest of the business. You've obviously worked in lots of different sort of facets of recruiting in T.A. Would you think the most fundamental data points are that every T.A. team should be tracking? And the That has a huge impact. I've always considered myself a very data driven person. And I think I've always tried to translate that into data driven culture for the team that I've been part of and I had the privilege to lead. And it's funny because every time I've shown an organization, it's many times it's been at transformation stages. So basically, you know, as an example, I've shown in "Pedido Shao", which is your sort of door dash in Latin America, hyper growth, when I was showing, they didn't have someone leading TA, right? That role did not exist in the company. There were 2,000 people company and they didn't have anyone looking after TA and thinking about it strategically. And the challenge was to grow the company to a new country, some triple the head count, which we did, right? But the reason why I showed this example is one of the first things I did when I was showing is, I asked for the matrix data. Just sent me the dashboards, right? And I remember receiving 20 different sheets with different data points measured differently, right? And so, you know, that wasn't the first time that happened to me. And I think, you know, many times what I see in organizations is I typically think about data for TA in, sort of, three different maturity levels or stations. First one is more, sort of, operational and baseline matrix, sort of your day-to-day matrix at every TA team needs to track. That really connect or relate to the process, right? How efficient it is, how it's operating. And so think your time to hire and time to feel, you know, sources, offer acceptance rates, roles per recruiter, everything that talks to about how you, you know, how you're operating your function, right? And I think for the most part, this is where 90% of TA teams and, you know, and organizations are at, right? The next one to me, it's sort of a more advanced matrix level where you start connecting the dots of the different data points to gain deeper insights. And so not just measuring your time to hire, but understand what drives it, right? And correlating metrics. And so, for example, you look at your time to hire per source and your quality of hire by source or recruiter, the commercial rate at each stage and who owns that stage recovery productivity. At this stage, I, you know, sometimes, I've had this argument with some people in the industry, you know, candidate experience, onboarding satisfaction when it's part of, you know, the TA, which in some organizations is in others, it's not hiring manager experience. And those are metrics that, you know, some would say, it's on the first one, right? It's on operational. I think it tends to be, you know, on this one because it goes a layer deeper than just how you operate and execute, but it really gives you insights on what you're achieving with that. But, you know, it could be here or there, but it's definitely part of this, you know, these first two stages. And then I think the last one, this is where, you know, sort of the more impact and strategic metrics. And this is where it connects to the previous question and conversation we were having around how we should talk with the business, right? And so this is where we start connecting the, you know, recruiting and transaction metrics with the broader talent journey and also with business impact. And so, you know, we can talk about the candidate experience and how that impacts engagement, tenure, performance and then of course connect that to revenue generation, you know, with growth and promotion, velocity and rates. And we can connect that with the source of the candidates, you know, and where they're coming from, if they refer us or we're actively hunting them. So I think, you know, this is more, you know, more of that strategic layer of data that this is really where we need to get to, to be able to influence the business and have them, you know, make them in best of time and have also leadership sponsor some of these conversations. And this is where, you know, many times we're in that data we don't get to because we can get to this point if we didn't go through, you know, through the operation on metrics first and, you know, the more advanced ones. Second, you need to go through that entire journey and that can take time, right? Because you need to assess processes and you need to do a lot of different things together. But I think, you know, many organizations are, for the most part, you know, in that stage one, sometimes at stage two, but, you know, but for the most part, they never get to stage three, which is where you, you know, you have the right data and insights to influence the business. With the kind of the advent and adoption of AI, one of the things that doesn't get talked about enough is just how important data is within that. So those organizations that are in that kind of third stage are going to have a huge advantage when they sort of apply AI technologies to some of the aspects of what they do. I suppose on that point, what impact do you think AI is going to have on jobs and careers in recruiting? Yeah, it's, you know, it's such a, you know, I think it's such a big question now at this and so hard to answer. And I even think about this, you know, I think like everyone in the industry, right? And so, so it's, you know, I think on the one side, I think it connects to something we mentioned before where we're seeing or we typically see T8 teams not having enough resources. And so what I'm seeing, you know, nowadays a lot is, you know, the argument that with AI, teams should be more efficient. You know, and so we reduce, you know, the scale of our teams. So we ask recruiters to manage a higher volume of open roles. But then we're not strategically designing how they should incorporate AI in their execution. So I think, you know, a couple of things we're going to see very early on is, you know, some of that pain as we, you know, go through the transition. Then I do see, you know, and we've, we've all seen it. A big, I would say adoption in AI for the operational task. So we're seeing a lot of, you know, automated screening and, you know, and hunting. You know, a lot of assessment with AI. Some tools and managed candidate experience, which is great. So we're seeing some of that early on. And, you know, and I think one of the things that I'm noticing, and I'm honestly concerned about it in our industry, is that typically for large organizations, you used to have the TA operations team. And, you know, you could call it operations, you know, depending on the organization, maybe had different name. But, you know, the team said, you know, would support the operational task, you know, would either focus on interview, scheduling on updating ATSs, on making sure data quality was right. Sometimes they did some sourcing as well, but sometimes you also had a separate sourcing team. You know, so depending on, you know, on your structure design, you had, you know, those, those, those layers on, you know, those, those teams within the TA function. And, AI is coming into basically take over all that. Those are the things that, you know, AI is taking over first. And, you know, what you typically saw in those teams were, you know, they weren't entry gate to talent acquisition, right? The, you know, more junior people, people that, you know, came out of university or, you know, came to do an internship. They, they went to those teams, right? Because it was, you know, maybe less complex task, less exposure to, you know, to business stakeholders. And it was the first step to really getting involved in talent acquisition. And, you know, one of my biggest concerns now is with AI taking over that, we're pretty much removing a lot of the entry points to the function, right? And what does that mean to the future of recruiting and TA when you just miss those entry points and people, you know, you have your experience TA, advice source, we can call them now that, you know, understand the business, have done this for a long time. They have their networks, they know the market. And they also have a set of AI tools that takes care of all of that. You know, those are those, you know, recruiters that have been in the business for the last 10 years. Now, what about that person that just came out of university and wants to start in the business? They don't have that, right? And they also don't have the show that, you know, were before, they would support that individual, you know, that, that experience, talent, advice, or in schedule interviews, and learn from that. And so I think one of the biggest concerns that I have is, you know, entry points are disappearing for the, you know, for the TA function, which by the way, is also going to impact HR in general, because TA tends also to be an entry door for HR, right? You see a lot of TA professionals going to see other, you know, roles like people, partners, and talent development, so on and so forth. And so I think that's one of the biggest things and concerns that, you know, that I personally have in mind right now with the function. And I think, you know, the other is we're, you know, we're seeing for some industries and some talent segments, a faster pace of change and others. So for example, you know, for blue color hiring or you know, retail, you know, that's moving quickly into automation, right? Because it's, you know, with high volume hiring, it's moving quickly into, you know, AI. And so you have less of a human involvement, at least from TA, right? Because then they might talk to the business, but you have a lot of tools such as go, you know, you post a show, you get 500 applications, AI screens them, and they send the, you know, top ten candidates to the hiring manager. So you don't need a recruiter there anymore. It's different with white color, and you know, even less with executive roles where you need to build that, you know, that relationship, and it's a different process altogether. And so, but I do see, you know, a bit of a takeover in those talent segments and those industries. I guess eventually I heard, I think, you know, I don't want to, I don't remember who it was exactly, but, you know, someone from either Google or OpenAI saying that, you know, AI right now was operating at the level of an intern, right? And it's, it's really a baby, right? It's been about two years, a year and a half, and so, you know, a machine in five, 10. So I think that's what we're seeing now. I think it's hard to say where it's going, but I definitely think it's going to be more difficult to, you know, get into the Tantakshion function and industry. And I think it's going to happen first in, you know, more global and large organizations, I think, then, you know, smaller startups and smaller companies. There's still probably going to need some level of, you know, T.A. advice, but maybe, you know, it's going to be more of a people partner, a charitionally swore that also manages T.A. Yeah, I think you, you raised some really interesting points there and there are huge concerns about things like entry-level jobs across the board. I mean, it's difficult to predict the future. And, you know, you've sort of talked about some of the things that are likely to happen there. But where do you think this is going to get to end up? Or where do you hope this is going to end up? What do you think that the recruiting experience will look like in a few years time? Yeah, so I think there's two ways to answer that, right? So let me start with where I hope it will end up. And I think, you know, where I hope it's going to end up is with a blend of AI and human touch, right? I've always been a strong believer and also a supporter in this industry of, you know, the importance of providing candidates with a positive experience. And I think, you know, creating that, you know, optimizing through AI and simplifying the process that's going to happen. And ideally, we're going to give our TA industry and recruiters and TA professionals the tools to definitely be more efficient and optimizer time. And, you know, maybe even work a few less hours every day, but also have, you know, have them involved in the process, right? Be, you know, be that human that's accompanying and supporting candidates through their experience. Because at the end of the day, you know, when people make, you know, we're in the industry, we're, you know, we support individuals to make one of the biggest decisions in your life, which is either taking a shower, you know, or, you know, or starting, you know, a new career. And so I think having a person, you know, in that process is super important. It makes a difference. And so, you know, my, my aspiration and, you know, what I hope it will be is a mix of, you know, human touch, supported by AI, where, you know, people feel that they have a person on the other side that's, you know, right there with them and also the business has, you know, a person that cannot buy some and guide them and, you know, on the TA side. And, you know, I think we, the function that's broader than Shastanta question, I think this is going to make us make a change towards something that we've been talking a lot about, which is moving from silos to antacquisition to development, you know, different silos for talent and Shastanta having a broader talent function, right? And so we're going to have those talent and vice versa, you know, but, you know, that work with the business, not only telling them, you know, how they and why they should make one hard decision and understand the market, but also, you know, connect that with their team and the current gaps that they have and the ad, you know, ad culture, value that they need to go after in the market. And so I think, you know, we're going to see that talent advisor that's, you know, that goes from acquisition to eventually exit of people in the company. That's the aspiration, I would say. Yeah. Leanne, thank you very much for joining me. Thank you, Maddie. It was great. Thank you. I appreciate it. My thanks to Leanne. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can search all the past episodes at RecruitingFuture.com. On that site, you can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Recruiting Feature Feast, and get the inside track on everything that's coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I'll be back next time. And I hope you'll join me. This is my show.