My guest today wants to talk about job descriptions, specifically 5 things that are going extinct on them. Rob Kelly is the founder and CEO of OnGig a tool that helps employers create better job postings.
TRANSCRIPT
Chris Russell:
So why are you so obsessed about job descriptions? Tell me where that fever comes from.
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. I did this math like you, I mean this as a compliment, I'm a hiring HR nerd. And I did this analysis a while back. I called it The 80/20 of Hiring still up on Google if you want to Google it. And what I wanted to do is figure out what's the value of a hire. And I took S&P 500 numbers and revenue per year and everything else. And I've tweaked it here and there. But basically the gist is that if you're hiring a hundred people, the best hire of those hundred, if you're a S&P 500 company is $30 million revenue per year for the single best of your next 100 hires. And then your second, third, fourth, best hires they're in the two, 3 million range, and it goes down lower but still in the hundreds of thousands of revenue per year.
Rob Kelly:
And so look at a hire as the most important transaction in business, unless you're selling your company or buying a company and also even in your life, where else is something worth millions of dollars they're on the line for both sides. Employer gets that value, hopefully you'd stick around for a long time and the candidate does so you get paid and this is what you do for your life's work. So the job description, the job posting is the advertisement for that opportunity for that transaction so I call that a million dollar hire.
Chris Russell:
There you go. Very nice. And just give the audience a quick description of what Ongig does for us.
Rob Kelly:
Sure. Real simple Ongig eliminates boring and biased job descriptions and it's cloud software. We're not an agency, we're a software company that creates software to help you eliminate boring and bias job descriptions.
Chris Russell:
Nice. When did the company start?
Rob Kelly:
2000... Let's see. Well, in my journal around Halloween 2010, and then there were some noodling for a couple of years. Then we had some years that we were in the lab, actually testing things out. I call it the lab now, of course back then we thought we were really selling real things, but it turns out that we had to make a lot of mistakes first. And then really it's been the last few years where we've hit our stride and are doing, I think a good job for some of our great clients.
Chris Russell:
Yeah. So you've seen a lot in his last 10 years I'm sure. What do you think has changed in the last five, 10 years when it comes to you job descriptions themselves, can you walk us through that timeline?
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. What hasn't changed. The big things and this applies to so much else, but it impacts job descriptions for sure is just a few key bullets of things that have transformed job descriptions in our world in the last just five years or so, the Me Too movement. So I think that was a watershed moment for women. Suddenly women were basically taking down some of the biggest men in business. Taking them down because they misbehaved and that really put a spotlight on the importance of how men and women are not treated equally in the workplace and the scales needed to be balanced there. So that was one then after that they see a racial reckoning. George Floyd and Black Lives Matter that put the spotlight on the African American community on people of color.
Rob Kelly:
And after that suddenly you saw stock exchanges, having diversity quotas, California having quotas for board of directors, things really started to change and pay ranges in certain states now pay equity, including and job descriptions themselves. And even more recently things are really blowing my mind. I don't know if you watch the All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Game recently, but they had Kamala Harris interviewed for an extensive period of time. I've got a five-year-old son, so I was barely able to watch because if I turn the TV on, he of course thinks it's something for him. He's not as big a fan as I am yet. But anyway, all this talk about HSBCU, historically black colleges and universities. That is just taking off just in terms of how much energy is going into that right now. So we're really transforming as a community before our very eyes, just the work you and I are doing in the last just few years even. Things are changing and that means the future's going to look different than it did a few years ago.
Chris Russell:
Yeah, I would add too it's becoming a very visual job description lately, too. It's starting to focus less on the text on the page sometimes it's more about the visual aspect of it, it is kind of a visual web now and the next generation of seekers is used to TikTok and Instagram and just comment on that a bit if you could.
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. We've got two different solutions. One focuses on text this is Ongig and one focuses on visuals. And we do see you're exactly right 100% that visuals are becoming more important on the web. And then at the same time, whether it's pictures, video, graphics and we even had Autodesk put up their culture deck kind of culture code like 80 slides. Netflix is famous for having one of these, Autodesk put that up on their... using Ongig on their job descriptions. So instead of just looking at plain text alone, they were flipping through a deck, candidates were flipping through a deck of dozens and dozens of slides, what it was like to work at Autodesk. So whether it's a video, pictures, decks, something visual, social media, all that job content certainly is changing dramatically visually. That said, whether it's coming through video audio or a deck, someone's voice speaking to you, their still words. And we don't see that going away anytime soon, something needs to be communicated and it's going to be communicated in words. And so we have a big focus on that with our text analyzer solutions.
Chris Russell:
Yep. So you and I were chatting about the future of the job description a bit, and you had a list of five things that are going extinct on them. So let's walk down the list for us. Let's start with number five, I guess we'll go backwards.
Rob Kelly:
Go backwards. I'll just pick ones, let's see and I've even had a couple of bonus ones since then. So I'll just pick ones that I at least have a lot of energy around. One is requirements and responsibilities, and I'll give a shout out to it happened to be Peter Weddle recently had a post about this, and I've written about it too, which is A players they don't want to just be kind of told what to do, they want to know what's in it for them and what they're going to learn, what they're going to accomplish, who they're going to work with. And it's just a different level of for the war for talent, if you want an A player candidate you're really going to have to speak more to what's in it for them and not just, "Here's what's required of you and your responsibility is going to be."
Rob Kelly:
So I definitely see requirements and responsibilities getting tweaked in a pretty big way going forward and employers having to write more to this A player. And you're not going to get the A player every time, but you need to write to them. You will get them, you'll get that 30 million a year performer impact. So requirements and responsibilities, for sure. We see that changing going forward.
Chris Russell:
Yeah. You mentioned one thing their wanting to know about who you going to be working with and for which to me was always missing from these things. I wanted to know more about my hiring manager or the team I'd be working on. Let's talk about that a bit if you could.
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. 100% it's not always simple and it's scary, of course, if you're an employer, but what's more important than who your manager is going to be? If you and are partnering together and you're hiring me for something, not that RecTech Media needs any of my help looks like you're doing awesome based on that recent job description expo. But what's more important than who you're going to report to? So I think if you could put the name of the person in there, that's great. I understand some companies want to be cautious about that. At least talk about who the type of person you're going to be reporting to, is it the VP of marketing. I think most companies could at least put that in there. And let's say you can't do that for whatever reason next level down, which you should do either way is talk about the team.
Rob Kelly:
Especially if you're a large company. The team makes a huge difference and so if this is some new team that's launching some new product, or how big is the team? So little things like you're going to be reporting to the VP of marketing on a team of 10 folks remotely distributed around the US or maybe somewhere in Costa Rica, that might be interesting to the candidate. So I think just a subtle change like that can go a long way and it shows you you care about the candidate and what's going to be important to them.
Chris Russell:
Yeah. That's great. All right, what else you got?
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. And so roughly, I think I got six or seven, once you and I decided to do this, I got extra excited so might be bonus ones, but let's try to go a little bit backwards here. So EEO statement, while we don't see that going away the best employers right now are doing what I would call a hybrid EEO diversity statement. And what I mean by, we all know the EEO statement is often just a checklist. If you type the word EEO, you're covered with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. But candidates look at this stuff, they look at what's written at the bottom. And so I think you're going to see more of an inclusive diversity message down there with details and employers are doing this already, but just about really what is your philosophy about inclusion? We really will hire everyone.
Rob Kelly:
You're now starting to see, including former felons right down there in the EEO diversity statement, that's interesting. That's a different kind of company because some employers won't do that. But if you do, that's certainly going to stand out both to former felons, obviously, but also sending a message of, "Hey, we're open, we're trying to reform our society." So I think you'll see more of an EEO diversity kind of hybrid statement at the end. Maybe both, maybe one merged, but I know that some Fortune 500 companies they've asked me personally, I've personally written this hybrid diversity statement at the end of job postings for them because it's real important.
Chris Russell:
Yep. Okay. That's two.
Rob Kelly:
All right. Keep going backwards?
Chris Russell:
Yep. Keep going.
Rob Kelly:
I think this is an obvious one given COVID, but the notion of the location is really changing. Right now where most of the world is allowing folks to work remotely, but what does that mean? Is it truly remotely? So for instance, my understanding, I just heard this as a story recently, Workday they're allowing their employees to work remotely, but you happy working remotely. It's expected that you're going to be going back into a satellite office. So you can't necessarily, again, this is just third-party anecdote I heard recently this could be anyone and it makes sense. They're going to let you work remotely, but it's going to be nearby to some office. And there's obviously going to be a schedule and everything else. So I think the wording about where you're going to work, is it truly purely remote, completely, Elastic, great company.
Rob Kelly:
They call it distributed by the way, my understanding is 100% you work anywhere it doesn't matter at Elastic, but other companies going to have to put the details in there a little bit more even the words you use. Elastic was one of the first to use distributed and it was kind of clunky, but you know what it makes sense. It's not just work at home. It could be work anywhere and your workforce is distributed kind of moving. But are you going to have to plug into the Austin office at some employer, work remote, but you have to check in at Austin, you're going to need to say that in the job description.
Chris Russell:
Two things on remote Rob that just came to mind. Number one, there was some issues with some ATSs out there, even just being able to support the remote listing of the job type. I know as a job board owner, like Google for jobs, came out a couple years ago saying, "Hey, if you tag all your jobs that are remote under type telecommute we'll actually identify those jobs as remote listings in the job search function of Google for jobs, for example." And so I know that some ATSs out there weren't prepared for this remote job type thing, it's just taken over the world here overall. Have you seen that in any of your client base or heard them talk about it?
Rob Kelly:
Yeah, just had I don't want to throw them under the bus, but a friend of mine just got a senior director of talent acquisition just got a new job. I looked at their job board and their career side and I said, "Wow, I had no idea 120 people you're hiring." But then he said, "Well, Rob, actually, and they were using Greenhouse as an ATS. He said, "Well, really we're not hiring that many." There were 50 listings for a sales rep remote Austin, a sales rep, remote San Francisco, sales rep promote New York. And so I think they were flexible in where they hired that person, but it was not that many sales reps that they needed. And I think it was tweak they needed to make in Greenhouse so the current ATS is prepared for that, big opportunity for future ATSs too, to make sure that, "Hey, an argument can be made that you can do a ATS from scratch focus on the remote workforce and do quite well these days."
Chris Russell:
Yeah. That's interesting. Second thing remote would be it's really.... It's a talent attraction tool now. A number companies have come out saying, I think it was Twitter, "We're going fully remote." No more offices, things like that. That's going to force other companies to have more positions that are remote going forward. Don't you think?
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. The fact that you mean the big companies are now sort of following suit, whereas it used to be just a small company thing?
Chris Russell:
Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rob Kelly:
Yeah I agree.
Chris Russell:
Yeah. I think you can expect it more of candidates coming into the workforce that, "Hey, do you offer remote? Why not, if you don't." We're going to hear those questions, I think a lot going forward.
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. I do think this will be a new world where folks, if you have a job that's required where you're in person and it's required, that is going to be a very different job to the rest of us, where suddenly it's going to be the exception. Like, "Really you got to go in every day of the week, are you a police officer, fire department, like what?" So I think there will be a big shift in that where if you don't provide some flexible work. And we all know to get the best candidate, if you take the location part out they can hire anyone in the world, then that's a huge asset for the employer but it's becoming less so. So it's the next level to do for a company like Ongig, we only hire remote, always had. My last company, 90 employees, all remote, and we were always able to get the best.
Rob Kelly:
But also then you're going to have to come out as an employer, you're going to come out with your best practices of are you going to pay them all the same? Are you going to pay the remote worker in San Francisco the same as you pay the remote worker in Boise, I think it's Boise but a little bit lower cost versus some upstate New York out in the woods where the rent's really low, interesting change is going to happen. I think there's no right or wrong answer there, but the employers to your point, the employer's position on it, where they stand and how they communicate that to a candidate is going to have to be rock solid. Because there'll be a lot of candidates saying, "What you're not going to pay me as much if I'm in Boise? San Francisco? Well, why I don't like your values, Mr. Employer, Mrs. Employer.
Chris Russell:
Yep. All right. So we got the remote out of the way. What else is on your list?
Rob Kelly:
This years of experience I think is going out the window slowly. And the reason is that we're now in a workforce I believe that's more skills based. So do you really need five years of experience in social media marketing. Is that right or do you need someone who... What if someone comes along and says, "Well, I started last year and I created this cool little TikTok thing, and it's got it's got 5,000 followers on it already." Well, maybe you're probably pretty interested in that candidate. So the years of experience has always been a weird one too because it can get you sued too, because if you put some range in there then you get sued for age discrimination. So if you say I just want three to five years experience, well, what about the gal who has seven and 10 and that's happened, there have been lawsuits over that. So I think the combination of this new skills economy that we've got, as well as it just gets you into trouble. I think if you have years of experience in your job description, you're going to start to look a little stodgy.
Chris Russell:
How do you think employers should approach that? So if they take that out, but they're still looking for someone who's done it before, how do they word that, do you have any tips there?
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. Name it real specifically. And a lot of these things affect each other including diversity inclusion. So this whole, I think you know this, that you can get in trouble if you say, "I want to hire a digital native someone who's grown up with technology. Born into this new world that we're in of technology." Well, do you really need a digital native, or are you just trying to hire someone who knows Facebook pay-per-click advertising really well? So that's a little bit of a side note, but to answer your question, just be real specific. What is the thing that you need? Is it A back to social media marketing? Is it you need to grow your Facebook channel? So, well, I need someone who has run a Facebook channel, media buying channel. They've bought media on Facebook and driven a channel for B2B.
Rob Kelly:
That's nice and specific. Maybe they've done two or three, that's a little bit different they've had a diversity, but years of experience. Well, and first off, like Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook says, "There's some programmers who have one year of experience who are 10 times better than the programmer with five or 10 years experience." So you want to hire that best skilled person, not just someone who's been around for awhile.
Chris Russell:
Well, what else is on your list? We're coming towards our optum podcast time here, but what else you got for us?
Rob Kelly:
Yeah, I'd say another one is asking for the candidate, asking on the job description that the candidate come from an elite school. And Google just got into trouble related to this topic to Washington Post and a whole bunch of stuff on it. Unfortunately, Google's intentions were good, but those historically black colleges and universities was part of that. But basically there are many companies out there who asks for a top 20 computer science engineering school degree, or top 25 or a top 50. And my response to that is you better be darn sure that that's what you want.
Rob Kelly:
Because first off, there are some people that will read that literally and if their 21st that's cool school they won't apply. And also how about they didn't go to any elite school at all, but they're self-taught and an amazing developer. You really don't want them? You got to be sure about that. And I think you're going to see that start to go away because there are some elite schools... Some people cannot make it into an elite school based on where they grew up. Money their parents didn't have and so forth yet they might be the best candidate out there. One of the best.
Chris Russell:
Let's see here. Right.
Rob Kelly:
Want one more?
Chris Russell:
Yeah, one more. Then I got one more question to wrap up.
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. And so finally I think job descriptions are going to shift the old, he, she language. And the gender oriented language to be much more open to LGBTQ. So you're going to see a lot less he slash she being used, replaced with they, you're going to see things like maternity, the word maternity be used less. And you'll see it replaced with phrases like paid time off. You'll see less of mention of mom and dad and just parents because a lot of parents are mom and mom or dad and dad, or some other a relationship to that. So I think whether it's gender pronouns and language, that's specific to masculine and feminine in this new world where folks don't... Not everyone identifies with being just a man or a woman the traditional set of parents is going to change. What's that?
Chris Russell:
Just call them the successful candidate, that phrase. The successful candidate will and then... That's all, you got to call them. You have to call them he or she, or they, whatever. The successful candidate is who you're looking for.
Rob Kelly:
Yep. Yep. And just like when you start to talk about benefits, there are still job descriptions out there that say our moms get this maternity content taken off. Payment taken off, or our moms get a nursing station to nurse their kids this is a new world now. So you have to copyright all that language and think through, "Okay, well we want to support the parents. First off, do we have the same benefits for the dad and the mom if that's what you call yourselves or the parents." That's a good first step. How do we communicate to this new world, which isn't just a candidate by the way. The candidate maybe a straight white guy like me, but let's say my daughter is transgender. Let's say my best friends are a gay couple. Well, you have to speak not only to me as a candidate, you have to speak to my community too. Make sure I feel like I'm associating with the right company here. And again, not the stodgy old... I call it the DMV. You don't want to be marketing your jobs like the DMV.
Chris Russell:
The DMV JD.
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. Nothing wrong with Department of Motor Vehicles. But I think everyone knows what I mean, which is they're kind of stodgy and old fashioned about these things is you want... you got to be way ahead of all that.
Chris Russell:
Right. Right. Well, we talking with Rob Kelly CEO of Ongig, Rob I appreciate the knowledge dropping today. It's been a great conversation.
Rob Kelly:
Yeah. I appreciate it Chris.
Chris Russell:
My last question for you is thinking back, what's the best job description you've ever seen out there, does one come to mind?
Rob Kelly:
Well, I'm very biased pun intended, but the ones that we've written and there are a number of great clients out there to look at. But it's the ones we've helped some of our clients write, not through our software but in the early days of writing, building our software, we actually wrote job descriptions for some of the largest companies in the world. And so those are still hanging around places like ESPN and different parts of Disney and some other places who don't want to be named, but it's the ones we write for clients and are the ones that clients write using our software. And same offers when we did that expo together, Chris, which is any of your listeners who want to get a free analysis of their jobs to see some of these words and phrases that are biased or boring, flagged. We're always happy to do. Just get ongig.com and ask for a demo request and mention RecTech.