Ashlie Collins
Hello and welcome to Hire We Go!, where we’re chatting all things talent acquisition transformation. Whether you’re an HR vet or someone who’s simply fascinated by how to find, attract, and engage talent, you are most certainly in the right place! I’m your host and Director of Solutions here at Joveo, Ashlie Collins, and joining us today is Matt Adam of NAS Recruitment Innovation. Thank you so much for joining us! Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about yourself and NAS?
Matt Adam
Of course, thanks Ashlie! So to start, I’m a bit of a unicorn in that, I’ve been with the same organization for my entire working career. I started with this organization about three months out of college. I won’t say the year, but it was during the Clinton administration. So it’s been a number of years. The company is NAS Recruitment Innovation. We are a leading employer branding and recruitment marketing firm. And, you know, I love it for a couple of reasons!
You know, first of all, I love the space that we’re in. You know, finding a job is always stressful. And, as we all know, finding the right fit, both culturally and by position, skill fit, etc., is really hard. And it sucks when you don’t get it, but it’s amazing when you do. So just playing a really small part in that is super fun and rewarding. And so it’s really fun! And then, you know, the industry, the company, my job is anything but stagnant. It’s changed dramatically over the past couple of years. And I kind of consider it a bit of a badge of honor that I’ve been able to survive through…
Ashlie Collins
Weather it!
Matt Adam
Exactly! Not one, but two, probably three wholesale changes in our industry where, you know, lot of companies, lot of company verticals didn’t even make it. So, it’s a space where you’re never sitting still and you’re always keeping it moving and I really liked that.
Ashlie Collins
No, absolutely! It sounds like we’ve been around about the same amount of time. And my career kickstarted when we were making the transition from print to online and everything in between. It’s crazy. Absolutely crazy! So tell me, Matt, I’m keen to get your thoughts. What’s one area of your business that really excites you?
Matt Adam
So, you know, we do lots of different things as an employer branding and recruitment marketing firm, but actually one of the things that I love to talk about is an organization’s career site.
So, I think that the career site, in my mind, is kind of the nucleus of your recruitment marketing strategy. It’s where every candidate goes at some point in the apply process and it’s… they make assumptions about who you are, based on what they see out there, and it’s sometimes their first impression of you. So it’s really a chance to lock them in and get them excited. And yet by and large, career sites are, they’re wonky.
They’re detached from what candidates actually want and they don’t provide a great experience. So, you know, that’s one of the things that I’m passionate about. I see a real opportunity and I see a big difference between the companies who do that really well and the companies who don’t. And you know, I’d say it’s not rocket science for a lot of this. It’s pulling up a chair, listening to the data and the analytics of what’s going on on the career site. Unfortunately, a lot of people just don’t even have access to that. So they’re flying blind. But if you can see what the candidates are telling you, it becomes pretty clear what the path is to fix the process.
Ashlie Collins
Yeah, and we’ve seen this too, where it’s just like, once upon a time, even if the shell was modern, you still sort of had this like static scaffold behind and a decision tree and that was sort of what you’re stuck with. Have you had any boundary pushers or folks that have really done something innovative with their career site that you could highlight?
Matt Adam
Yeah, for sure! So, here’s a simple one and, you know, it’s innovative in the sense that not a lot of companies are doing it yet. But it’s the delineation of your job families and providing different paths depending on the audience that you’re speaking to.
I’m cautious to say it’s innovative because it’s pretty simple, but it’s something that can provide profound impact. So if you’re a healthcare organization, treating your nurses and some of your hard to fill physicians, APPs, differently than your dietitians and your HR and accounting staff. Most companies ‘cattle call’ all of them down the exact same path. And so just by separating them out, you can make a huge change.
Ashlie Collins
I love that! And to your previous point, the knock-on effect of analytics and how you can train AI when you are segmenting out workflows like that is also pretty cool. I’ll resist the temptation to go down a rabbit hole! But instead of going down that rabbit hole, I will ask you, if you had a magic wand, what would you change about talent sourcing in 2025 and heading into 2026?
Matt Adam
First of all, this is such a fun game. It’s like, I’d spent some time thinking about it and it’s kind of like the… “if you could have dinner with three famous people from history, like, who would you have with it”…kind of gets you thinking in all different kinds of ways.
So, the first one is just fewer clicks to apply. We’ve been talking about this forever. If candidates could express interest in just a couple minutes without the broken ATS handoffs, you know, again, it continues to elude us, even though I think we all agree that it would be a better candidate journey. And our industry follows other industries, and you’d never see this on a retail experience. The pain of what we put some of our candidates through.
So, you know, again, that first expression of interest should be easy, should be painless, it should be quick. And, you know, that’s something I wish I’d see more of!
Ashlie Collins
Amazing! Thank you so so much for sharing your insights and experience with us today. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you, and thank you all for tuning in. Until next time!
