AI in Talent: Why It Matters (and When It Doesn’t)

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Episode Summary:

Season One | Episode 25

AI is everywhere in recruiting right now. And depending on who you ask, it’s either the future of TA… or a compliance nightmare wrapped in a shiny demo.

In this episode of Talentless, Ashley King and Desiree Goldey cut through the hype and talk about what AI actually does well in talent, what it does dangerously wrong, and why the biggest risk isn’t the tech. It’s the humans using it without guardrails.

We get into:

• Why AI isn’t the villain, but people using it without limits absolutely are

• The difference between automation vs. AI (and why most teams confuse the two)

• Where AI can genuinely help recruiters: admin work, sourcing, templates, strategy prep

• Why AI should never be the final decision-maker in hiring

• Candidate experience: where “efficient” starts to feel cold and gross

• How AI interviews and avatars can create new bias (dialect, culture, speech patterns, “presence”)

• The compliance reality: it doesn’t have to “decide” to still influence outcomes

• The underrated concern: environmental impact (your prompt isn’t free, babes)

• A practical takeaway for TA leaders: create prompt libraries so recruiters show up as partners, not order-takers

  
  

Bottom line: AI can give TA time back. But only if the process and the people using it are ready. And right now? The class is… not ready.

 Listen wherever you get your podcasts Submit your “Dum Dum” recruiting story for a shoutout (anonymous is cool too)

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Desiree Goldey (00:06)

my god, Ashley, I cannot believe how cold it is in Texas. I'm tired.

Ashley King (00:10)

First of all, it's

absolutely disgusting how cold it is.

Desiree Goldey (00:13)

So, but let's jump into what we're talking about today. What are we talking about today, Ashley?

Ashley King (00:17)

All right, team today we are talking about AI and talent and I just kind of want to kick off. Does like straight off the bat. If you're like, I'm pro AI. I'm not like where just giving the general audience a two second snippet. Where is your feels with AI and talent? Like where do you sit on the fence?

Desiree Goldey (00:24)

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a weird place I'm in because I don't think it's the villain. think humans creating it are the villain kind of thing. But I do think there's some legal and compliance stuff that we're not thinking about and some really high level stuff that probably is above my pay grade but definitely needs to be handled. But listen, I use AI every day. So for me,

Ashley King (00:38)

huh.

word.

Hmm.

I know. People have seen our pictures. I

am not a real Bratz doll. I don't know who needs to hear that, but that isn't actually me. As shocking as that is.

Desiree Goldey (01:03)

Yeah, so

I struggle with this one, right? Like I actually had an interview recently with an AI bot, avatar. Yeah, so we're gonna get it. Yeah, I mean, you know.

Ashley King (01:10)

Whoa, what did you think of that?

Desiree Goldey (01:15)

It gave me a summary at the end, actually thought was cool. So I could like look at what I talked about and practice later. And I actually copied it. It was, it was actually kind of cool for me. Cause I think I'm a great interviewer. I downloaded it and they had an actual app.

Ashley King (01:19)

⁓

That's kinda nice.

Desiree Goldey (01:31)

Avatar

like it was a it wasn't like I was talking to just words which are like the voice signal It was a woman. Yeah, and so Yeah

Ashley King (01:33)

Yeah.

Was it a cartoon or did he look Okay. you know she was AI? Did she say it?

Okay.

Desiree Goldey (01:43)

you

have to click this button that says you know when I came into it. And this company actually was really smart. Even when they set up the interview, there was this huge disclaimer in my email about the first round. So I think they're doing it right, And I didn't hate it. I'm not gonna lie. I don't know. I felt less nervous because it wasn't a real person or whatever. I don't know. But I think if it

Ashley King (02:04)

Yeah, that's a little robot.

Desiree Goldey (02:07)

was in any other rounds, I would hate it, right? Yeah, but yeah, it was definitely first round. It was like the recruiter screen. ⁓

Ashley King (02:11)

Yeah. So it was first round.

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (02:18)

It'd be interesting to see the back end of that though about how it scored me and like, whether I fit or like, it'd be interesting to see that part of it. and I'm working with some companies right now that are doing that, this type of work and as an advisor. but, so this is why I'm conflicting when you asked me that question. ⁓ I think we're,

Ashley King (02:26)

Yeah.

Hmmmm

Desiree Goldey (02:37)

We're probably going to disagree sometimes in this episode, but ⁓ generally... No? Well, what's your take? Give us your two minutes. Give us your two minutes.

Ashley King (02:41)

for sure. Maybe. I don't know, actually.

No. So I'm, I'm kind of a mixed

bag. I'm not scared of it. What I get scared of is people who don't put parameters or limits in place. Those are the people who scare me. Cause then they'll use it on anything. If it gets to take place of their brain, having to do any cognitive load, they'll use it. Those are the people that.

Desiree Goldey (02:57)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ashley King (03:08)

because for the most part, if they're willing to put their whole strategic partnership hat onto an AI bot and say, well, then it means they probably weren't that great to start with, which means whenever the AI gives them terrible advice, they will follow it because they don't know any better. And so to me, I think AI is a good tool. think AI should never be used as the end decision maker. And I think that

Desiree Goldey (03:21)

Yeah. Right.

absolutely not.

Ashley King (03:35)

one rule alone can pull back a lot of potential issues. But I think that AI has its place. I think that AI has also its place for malpractice and that is controlled by the people. And the reason that we will continue to see more malpractice, because we don't even have the humans doing it right to start with, to stop the AI whenever it continues to do things wrong. So like, I'm not mad at AI.

Desiree Goldey (03:41)

Yeah.

Right? ⁓

Wait!

Ashley King (04:03)

it rewrite all my stuff. I am not a grammatical person. I hate writing so much, but I know what I want to say because I've even put in like a summary of like just writing it to the copilot. It sends it back. I'm like I don't like this. So I even have to write out all my own points and then I'm like I need you to just grammatically fix this and then I like what I get. But I will say I think it all comes down to how much you know to start with and how you use it.

Desiree Goldey (04:14)

Alright.

Right.

Ashley King (04:28)

and that lets us know everything we need to know next. And to be honest, I think that's with any technology, whether it's the internet, whether it's a gun, whether it's what, like anything that's a new advancement of anything, you have to know how to use it. Then you have to know its parameter when it's full of poo poo, you know?

Desiree Goldey (04:29)

I agree.

Yeah. Right.

I

mean, that's why I started with the conversation that AI to me isn't the villain. It's the humans who don't know enough and then they create these things in AI, right? Like, you know, and we're starting from the wrong place to get AI to do something for us. And it's causing, I've seen some AI tools out there for talent right now. I'm just shocked that someone was, actually involved in creating it, right?

Ashley King (04:55)

And yeah.

Mm.

I will never forget the hologram at HR tech,

Desiree Goldey (05:14)

Yeah.

Ashley King (05:14)

dude.

That's all I think about. Anytime someone are like, have you seen new TA tech? I'm like, I'm sorry. Unless you're talking about the hologram human that meets me at the door. No, like that was nutbags. That's like, yeah. Like if you have a real person coming in, don't worry. You don't need to hire a real recruiter. We can still give you AI for that. And it's just, it was like this fan with like a hologramic.

Desiree Goldey (05:19)

Okay. ⁓

It was nice. It was crazy.

If

It was nuts.

Ashley King (05:38)

You know, it was, it was crazy, but here's the thing. I'm sure business owners would love for TA to be taken over by an efficiency style bot. I mean, because then you have no one talking back to you to advocate on behalf of the candidate that they deserve 5k more. You have no one that actually harnesses the human side of this, which is what makes it the most difficult because we're like, no, you got to abide by the EEOC laws. Cause guess what Jack?

Desiree Goldey (05:47)

yeah. Right. ⁓

Night.

Right.

Ashley King (06:05)

No bots gonna come out and tell you that unless you prompted it to and ask it to deliver those things. So it's like, it's one of those things where it's if you are not set up for like super success when initiating in AI, you just fall right off the wagon. So, walk us through some stuff. Cause I have a few tips that I use that I think might be helpful for some people, but I'm curious, what's all in Dez's bag today?

Desiree Goldey (06:19)

I know.

What are

Here's

the thing for me that AI does really well for me and I think Everybody's going to say something different. We brought seven people on this show They're gonna see seven different things about AI and how it works for them for me what I've seen working with clients is sourcing candidates has been really successful for me and I love a bullion don't get me wrong, but you know AI has made it a little bit easier for me

Ashley King (06:52)

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (06:56)

to source great candidates and if you set it up right it could be a productivity tool that is like out of this world I also use AI specifically like you do similarly I use it to clean up grammatic stuff I don't let it create my ideas but I definitely play cleanup with chat GPT and especially for emails because I can sound like a really a bee and sometimes in my

Ashley King (07:17)

Yeah.

Me too!

Desiree Goldey (07:23)

I'm like, wait a minute, maybe I shouldn't send this kind of thing. But it also does a lot of productivity. does a planner for me. I really do use it for productivity. I find that getting away from my Excel spreadsheets of nonsense and having ChatGPT help me and guide me through productivity in a day while I'm recruiting is super helpful. And I've created some great agents and things like that to help me get to the finish line.

I think that's what it does well. And I think it will think of things that you may not have thought of. My chat GBT, I know they say not to name them, but her name is Billy. And I've actually taught it or put it. ⁓ yeah, I know. I know, Charlie was my first.

Ashley King (08:05)

RIP Charlie, by the way, because Charlie was your first and now we have Billy, but keep on,

Desiree Goldey (08:11)

needs a shout out but Billy I created like put in all of my Settings to push back on me right to say to me like girl. Did you even think? Like you you need what are you talking about? know what I mean? And and she does that and sometimes I'm like, oh maybe this wasn't clear or maybe this wasn't the right way to go at all and I start from scratch and

Ashley King (08:22)

Yeah, that's a stupid idea. Yeah, always.

Desiree Goldey (08:38)

And

I need that pushback, because I work alone. I'm a consultant most of the time, and I'm working out by myself, and I need that pushback. So those are the things I think it does well. We'll talk about the things it doesn't do well in a minute. But what do you think it does well, Ashley?

Ashley King (08:51)

Mmm.

So first of all, think here's something that I need people to understand. Cause I swear to God, every time we talk about AI, like people don't even know what they're talking about. let's, let me set a few parameters about what I'm about to say. Automation and AI are two totally different things. This is for the audience here today. This is me giving you a little treat. So here you go, team. Let me, let me just give you all these talking points. So y'all don't get all mixed up. Automation is whenever I have used my human brain.

to set parameters that create auto triggers and automate something. That means my human brain again have created when this triggers and I have set the if then within the product. If this, then that, and I chose it. That is automating something. AI is whenever we have an if then that I don't choose. So I just say, you know, this.

product or this co-pilot, someone puts in a question, it responds. That respond is anything that it comes up with. It is not like connected and triggered based off of what my human brain has said it's allowed to respond. So that is AI, whenever literal artificial intelligence is used as the parameters to trigger things versus your human brain. I cannot tell you how many people in TA want to pull something out of a process.

or want to take something away because they're like, we're using AI. No, baby, we're using automation. Knockout questions, automation. Like all this stuff, those are automated things. So I am teaching all this because y'all need the talking points so you can be a better sparring thought partner to your leaders because these people don't know the difference. And the difference is did a human brain set the parameters or did an artificial brain set the parameters? And that tells you, cause...

Desiree Goldey (10:17)

Yeah

it may be.

Ashley King (10:39)

You can have AI and automation in one pish posh, but gosh, which is where a lot of people get confused. You can have automated AI, which is what it typically is, but you need to understand that if someone's going to try to get knockout quit or anything like that, we're not talking about AI babes. Like just settle down. All right. Like keep it, keep it all together. So that's step one. As far as what I think goes well with AI.

Desiree Goldey (10:55)

Hahaha!

Ashley King (11:02)

recruiters have to do a lot of administrative functions. What do I mean by that? We need templates for this job to send out these emails to get candidates that we've sourced interested in this role. I have to send a intake call form, like all these things that are redundant tasks. There are a few things I do.

Desiree Goldey (11:06)

Yeah.

Ashley King (11:23)

kind of use AI and different AI tools almost like how you used to use Wikipedia in the day. I don't know if any of you all were like going through college or whatever while Wikipedia came, but everyone was like, that is not a valid source, not a valid source for anything. You can't use it for anything. However, every single one of my professors always said, because it was always written in layman's terms, it was so much easier to understand that it wasn't the worst place to start to get a general context.

You couldn't use it as your sources. You couldn't build your whole thesis or anything upon that, but it's something that gave you the context. Sometimes I think that's what Copilot offers to me now. So like if I'm searching something and I need just kind of bare bones background, I'm not actually getting the real Intel for this. I just need the context. Copilot or ChatGBT or whatever you are using AI is really, really great for that. So I would say get in context. The other thing that I would say, and you kind of said on this,

Desiree Goldey (11:58)

Right.

Ashley King (12:16)

Set your AI to be a sparring partner with you. Like legitimately, I tell it like, don't call me out on my bull. Like I want you to tell me everything that's wrong with this idea. so there's that piece. The other thing I'm going to say, and this is just a big disclaimer, cause I'm an environmental person and this is what I'm doing. I actually instruct our recruiters as much as I'm like, Hey, AI is great. AI is this every time you use AI, you're using like a lake of water. So I do need y'all to chill and be selective.

Desiree Goldey (12:19)

Yeah.

I don't think people even understand the environmental ramifications of this and how bad it is for our environment. And I was reading an article yesterday, I think it was in a Wall Street Journal about this exactly. And it was like mind blowing.

Ashley King (12:45)

Hmm.

Desiree Goldey (12:59)

It was mind-blowing how we're, what we're, I mean, we've been destroying the earth forever, but, you know, but, I mean, AI is taking it up a notch. It's just scary.

Ashley King (13:03)

No, ever since we've existed.

I mean,

we already were having a water shortage, which by the way, okay, not to get on a soapbox, but like, just so the whole world knows, we don't have a water shortage. 90 % of the earth is water. We have a salt water problem. No one wants to actually put efforts in desalination plants. We're not gonna jump on this, but I need the world to know we need to work on desalination. All right, okay, we're moving back.

Desiree Goldey (13:13)

Right.

Yeah.

Ha!

Ashley King (13:34)

is

is what other tips would you give us? What else is out there? What do you, what do you think it on? Cause I know one tip, but I'm gonna hold it. No, I think I'm all, should we hold it? Should we make them wait? It's kind of a goodie. Okay. Let me say like this. Everybody who tells me says it's a goodie. I actually learned this from the CISO of what is the main computer company that does know before know before trainings, IT.

Desiree Goldey (13:37)

I know, I think we'll go.

I'm being... no, before. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley King (13:57)

So their CISO, their security CI officer, he said, cause I specifically asked him, was like, how do you use AI that you think is different than everyone else? And that if you could give a tip to anyone, what would you do? And he said, he's like, not enough people take their AI results and then go put it in another AI to check it. He's like, I always do. He's like, I use an AI to check my AI and

That is something that ever since he said that to me, that's kind of what I do. So I'll use Copilot as like that context giver. And then I've set up ChatGPT to really be my sparring partner to where I put in the end product in there. And I say, I want you to tell me everything wrong. And so you kind of get context from both and it creates a much more robust product, if you will, because the algorithms within the two tools are very different as far as what they'll provide and how they provide results.

Desiree Goldey (14:47)

Absolutely. mean, that's

such great advice. mean, I have Gemini co-pilot Grok, ChatGBT, and I definitely do that, especially because their tone is different in each of them too. it's like for talentless, use ChatGBT because it's very good at casual and it's very good at speaking like me. But when I need like deep research and stuff like that, and I really need it to be

Ashley King (14:54)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Desiree Goldey (15:12)

like I really needed to think hard, which ChatUPD is getting better at this. I definitely favor Co-Pilot. I just think there's like this, need to know, you need AI to check your AI. I totally agree with that. And you should use different ones of these tools to do different things.

These things are so fast. It's really not taking up too much of your time to just move it over to the next one. So I think it's great.

Ashley King (15:37)

No, I just remember

that water y'all remember that water. That's all we know for sure. Remember that water. But yeah, now you're right. I mean, it's a, it's a nice tool to have in your toolbox in this current day and age.

Desiree Goldey (15:43)

you

it is. And again,

let's say it again, it is a tool in your toolbox. It should not be taking over your thinking. It should not be doing all that cognitive work that you're supposed to be doing at work. It should not be doing all of those things. It's a tool. Just like your ATS is a tool, okay? Like do a little better. Don't stop thinking. do think that, not that people are becoming dumber, but,

Ashley King (16:04)

It is very tall. Yeah.

I do. I

think we can straight say that. And it's on by design. People want you dumb. People want you dumb. It makes it, everyone's easier to maintain when you're dumb. So listen, that's by design, honey.

Desiree Goldey (16:18)

I know.

Yeah,

I know I was having a conversation with somebody about this the other day and I was like, I feel like you are reading from chat GPT to have this conversation. And she's like, well, I wrote up my thoughts first. No, was not you. God no. ⁓

Ashley King (16:30)

Probably me.

⁓ snap, that wasn't me.

okay, was about to say, that's not me

at all. I'm so scattered, no one would ever think I was reading from chat GPT. Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (16:41)

No, no, no But

it felt like it in the call and she was like, yeah, it's right here I took some initial notes and but you could tell it was her like reading it verbatim and I you know, and this goes to interviews too I've seen I've watched people look away from me to like other places and you know, right Yeah

Ashley King (17:01)

Yeah, I mean you can see the reflection in their glasses half the time of the screen that they're reading from and I can see my reflection

of my face, which is typically what you'd be looking at is not on there and it's a word doc. it's like, so I mean, but then that's just it. How do we as recruiters know that now we're actually assessing what we think we're assessing? How do we actually pull in good talent whenever everybody's using a calculator? And not only that,

Desiree Goldey (17:11)

Right.

I dunno.

Ashley King (17:29)

If everybody's using a calculator, will a calculator always be on the job to where it doesn't actually matter? They can use that. And cause that's how I see Copilot. I see it as the calculator. If you don't know how to do the math, you're fudged in my opinion. But if you can do the calculator, does the math for you. But again, if you start getting the wrong results from your calculator, which is allowed to happen in Copilot, you've got to be able to pick it up. And I don't think people know how to pick it up. So we're all circulating bad Intel. It's poo in, poo out.

Desiree Goldey (17:35)

You know?

You're right.

I know, it's horrible.

It's

getting worse though for me. It's like really some of these interviews I'm like, I'm going to ask you to close your chat GPT because I'm like, I can tell that you're totally reading it. I also have seen a lot more assessments coming into play because of AI. Like trying to assess out whether you really know how to do this job. Not that they can't do them with chat GPT as homework, but still, right? You got to still ask chat GPT the right question.

Ashley King (18:18)

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (18:21)

⁓ But you know, it's a scary and I don't My best conversations in life sometimes are just with you and the philosophical stuff background of something and if we're getting dumber as a nation or as a world I feel like we're losing those really intellectual deep Conversations we have with people and that for me is is a struggle

Ashley King (18:21)

Yeah.

You know what has always been my

biggest concern with AI and this AI of the whole, not TA, is this. so, okay, we've talked about it on this show before about how imagination is genuinely the only difference between us and any other species of homeo sapiens versus anyone else. That's the only difference. And to me, I feel like whether someone's writing a book, whether someone's doing a five minute standup, whatever it is,

Desiree Goldey (18:48)

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Ashley King (19:06)

for every single thing, creative piece, for every idea, for every notion, thought process that you put into AI, we are creating this master conglomerate of all of our dreams, all of our ideas, all of our intel. And even if it's just, check me on this and make sure I'm not stupid, it's still retaining that to where, is it doing its machine learning and getting more intuitive and better? Sure. But I also worry, I worry on two things. One,

Desiree Goldey (19:25)

Right.

Ashley King (19:33)

Everybody needs to know whenever it comes to these companies, one man owned them. So one man owning all of our thoughts, dreams, ideas, like they don't have to fish far to find out what should be the next Google and go put it into place because they have the money, the resource, and now the whole know-how, thanks to you. like plot point number one. But plot point number two is also just kind of, you know, this idea of

Desiree Goldey (19:37)

Right here. ⁓

Right.

Ashley King (19:58)

So what's the plan? What's the plan whenever something that's not a human being, because that's the idea, is it can't innovate, it can't think of things that don't exist. That's what makes a computer a computer. But what happens whenever machine learning does proceed? Now human intelligence, in the sense of I've conglomerated all of these things to where now in a machine learning context, that's what AI is supposed to be, is artificial intelligence. I can now map these dots that

Desiree Goldey (20:05)

Yay.

Right.

Ashley King (20:24)

80 % of society never even thinks about because I have everybody's input. And that is a intricate and interesting space for that to be in. And again, no one man should have all that power and a lot of them do.

Desiree Goldey (20:30)

Right.

Yeah.

Ashley King (20:41)

And that's not to say they'll use it like that, they have privacy, whatever, but it's just something to where whenever we're thinking big picture, whenever we're thinking of humans who own all of this and what could someone do with what, not what they would, but just what's possible. AI is kind of a weird, uncharted, like I worry, I don't put all my best ideas in it. And I know that might sound stupid because it's like, girl, you're a small P, no one gives an F about you. You don't even have a chat GPT account. do it from a public computer, like I don't know.

Desiree Goldey (20:42)

Yeah.

Ashley King (21:08)

But it is something to where if you're thinking about how often this is happening with so many people, it is receiving so much that I can't help but wonder what will you become because you're not gonna stay right where we left you. It's impossible. Not if it has machine learning, it is impossible. So, a little bit.

Desiree Goldey (21:22)

I know, it's impossible. I know, it's all a scary world. You ever seen

that movie I, Robot with Will Smith? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Ashley King (21:29)

Girl I think about that ish all the time and I always think about how because they have like the white clear looking and I'm just and it was always that big computer girl It wasn't even the little robots.

It was it was the man and guess what Jack? That's the way it's gonna be and her name is Alexa and she sits in my living room right now Yeah, I know you can't you can't say her name

Desiree Goldey (21:45)

I know.

I know, don't say her name too loud.

Did you change your voice under your Alexa? I had to change mine the other day because she was getting uppity. She's uppity these days. She was getting a little, yeah. I was like, no.

Ashley King (21:57)

Mm-mm.

Really? Now have I told you I even wrote

Amazon about this? This was way back in the day whenever they first started having these. I want a manners mode because children and people talking to this woman get abusive, they get whatever and they're like turn it on. I want my kids to be like turn it on and then she be like turn it on what?

Desiree Goldey (22:06)

No.

Yeah.

you

Ashley King (22:21)

and then they have to be like, please, and then she'll turn it on. Like I want a manners mode that like she flips the light off if you didn't say thank you after two minutes. Like I want that type of, because again, what we, the lines of who is human and who is not, like this stuff's getting blurred. And if we're not, people are gonna get used to screaming at a lady for orders. People are gonna be like, that ain't something I'm trying to set up with my children. So guess what? Manners mode.

Desiree Goldey (22:35)

Yeah, it's getting so blurred.

Yeah.

Right, it's just not

good behavior.

Ashley King (22:47)

It's not everyone needs a manners

mode they can turn on because our kids shouldn't even be treating robots less than, but Matt and I, he's fully convinced that's going to be like the fight of our generation. Like how all generations have one weird social, whatever ours is going to be real. Like our kids are going to be like, but I love him. And we're going to be like, he's not real. And like, we're going to have to like, like, it's going to be that, but for us, like that's going to be the qualm.

Desiree Goldey (23:01)

Yeah.

Man!

But

getting back to talent though, I really do know that most talent teams out there are doing more with less, right? And I'm definitely never gonna be the one to discourage a team that, especially who does high volume recruiting in these spaces,

Definitely the interview that I had with the Avatar, right? I'm not gonna be the one to discourage those moments in a team of two, right? Who's filling, you know, a hundred jobs, right? It's just not possible. And...

Ashley King (23:35)

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (23:42)

I think that leaders think that AI can take the place, but they just can't. They can do some things. They can do that first screen. Yeah. Even though I think there's probably a little bias built into it, because it's still built by a human. But I know. But after that, it still needs to be a human, point blank, period. AI just gives you more time to be a strategic partner to the business, to know the business better.

to take the time to do those things. That's what I think AI is for talent or what it should be for talent. It should not replace the entire function of a recruiter. And I don't believe that's possible, by the way. I want to see a company who's successfully doing that. And I don't think there's an example out there. So not yet.

Ashley King (24:25)

I think if you

do not understand the power significance or whatever that TA holds, I could easily see companies trying to fish away the whole thing to AI. So it doesn't doubt, I don't doubt that somewhere I'm sure that exists where the whole process is AI. Like that would not actually surprise me, not at all. ⁓

Desiree Goldey (24:37)

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Well, I know they're

doing it in marketing a lot, so I can't imagine.

Ashley King (24:51)

Honestly, the more

client facing the role, the more likely it is you're going to have AI. So go to markets, the sales, the, all of those people way long before blue collar, way long before engineers, because again, and here's what annoys me about the whole AI situation is a few things. One, we have no way of validating whatever they're saying is whatever, but two, how often is the job

Desiree Goldey (24:55)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well...

Ha!

Ashley King (25:17)

this individual doing a monologue to a screen of an avatar. Like that is not, like nine times out of 10, I don't know a single job where it's like, yeah, all I do all day is talk to avatars. So this is a perfect interview to assess my skills in this interaction. Nah, playa, like none of us, I don't ever get to talk to a bot, wish, but no, I'm always talking to real people that talk back. Yep, yep. So that's my thing is like,

Desiree Goldey (25:29)

Right.

Hmm

Right.

Ashley King (25:42)

If we are to be assessing them of the skills that they will need to have on this job, tell me where, anywhere in this AI assessment that it actually mimics the environment that they'll be in to where anything that we're assessing them on is actually connected to their performance. Because a lot of times we're telling people, no, but is it the content? Because the content is what the content is. Is it the delivery? Because like,

Desiree Goldey (26:06)

Right.

Ashley King (26:08)

and no one can decipher that. And it's just an AI that says, we felt like this one was the best response. Bloop. And so that's where I'm saying like, there's just, it's, mm, bleh, bleh. People just aren't great.

Desiree Goldey (26:17)

I don't know, like I said,

for me, I didn't hate the experience, but I would love to see the back end of what happened on the other side, right? Like, did you, did it think I was a fit? Did it, well, I guess we'll find out in a couple days, but did it think I was a fit? How did it assess me? What was I scored against? And how did I fall in that score? I loved it, I'm so, I just want to know so bad, because it's,

Ashley King (26:22)

Mmm. Word.

Right?

I mean, yeah, I would too.

Desiree Goldey (26:45)

It's driving me crazy actually. Yeah, right. Right.

Ashley King (26:46)

Like, do they put a response rubric in it and then they like parse it, like word coding it to make it match? Like how, mean, in my mind, IO psychology wise, I would say, yeah, they're going to have to path match code. Like if they're doing it that way, where they make a rubric, you have to say like, this is what a good answer is. This is what a bad answer is. And then they probably use AI to like.

Desiree Goldey (27:05)

Right.

Ashley King (27:07)

synonymize those terminologies to see which boat you fit in. The issue is AI is going to have this cultural aspect to it to where if a person maybe of a different culture explains something differently, it could put them in a different pot because it may say, well, they never said X, Y, Z, but I as a human may understand whenever I say sourcing, but they say search. Like, you know, it could be tiny things like that where there's cultural nuances and differences to where AI doesn't pick it up.

Desiree Goldey (27:21)

Right?

Ashley King (27:36)

And now we have a different of assessment just because it's an AI tool where we told it, should say this, it should say that. And the person who told it that culturally wouldn't have, it's a whole thing to where like, it's a whole thing. It is a whole entire kit and caboodle, a whole thing.

Desiree Goldey (27:47)

it's a whole thing. It really is a whole, it really is.

Cause I believe this, I believe AI is great for efficiency, But efficiency is only good if it leads to better decisions. If it leads to more bias and more unfair treatment and it leads to all these other things, then screw the efficiency, right?

Ashley King (28:07)

Yeah, no,

I agree. mean, who cares if you're... Yeah, I mean, because that's the thing. That's why I was like, is it content or is it delivery that is judging? Because if you, certain speech patterns could be dialect, it just could be your geography. Like, but it could say they have no executive presence because they stuttered and they stopped and they backed up and they whatever. So, hey.

Desiree Goldey (28:10)

Even in speech patterns.

Great.

Right!

Ashley King (28:29)

Who knows? One day maybe we'll find out. Maybe one day we'll see what's on the back end of the bag. But, whoo, that's crazy.

Desiree Goldey (28:31)

Yeah.

I know, I would love to see it.

And again, this goes back to though, that a fact that a human is setting up these systems, right? And they didn't know how to, well sometimes, but the, they didn't know what the right thing was in the first place.

Ashley King (28:45)

Sometimes. Yeah.

that they needed to give a wide breadth of options, you know? And that's just it. Basically I'm trying to say it's the blind leading the blind, but I want to say it's side unseen leading side unseen, because that is the correct way to say this.

Desiree Goldey (28:54)

Right.

Yeah.

Ashley King (29:02)

it will set you up for efficiency, but it will set you up for bad efficiency if you're not, like, again, it will do everything you need it to do. It's just.

Desiree Goldey (29:08)

Yeah, absolutely if you're not careful.

Ashley King (29:14)

Again, if you don't start with two plus two equals four, you're always getting poo poo. We're always getting from that point on, everything is off because I did not or it did not know two plus two is four. And that's where we're saying like the humans don't even know math well enough to tell the bot to say this is the math. And that's where I worry is because I know they don't know enough to where now they're going to automate what they don't know. And that's even messier. Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (29:31)

Yeah.

I know. And

even especially in compliance and like EEOC, I just, it just feels, yeah. Woof.

Ashley King (29:45)

I mean, yeah, are we gonna talk about Workday? Because they're like the big kitten caboodle in this

right now everyone's paying attention to. But I mean, yeah, they used AI in the process. And again, people need to understand whenever it comes to compliance, it just has to be a nudge. It doesn't have to actually be a decision making. It just has to be something that influenced your decision making that AI brought to you.

Desiree Goldey (29:52)

I know. Yep.

Ashley King (30:06)

It could be the way that it ordered the candidates in your thing if you used AI and said, do it based on who you think is best. And then you don't ever make it down to the bottom of the candidates because you just do first 10 in, first 10 out or whatever it is, however you work. And that's where the issues come in is like any, any tiny little implication, that's where your compliance issues lie.

Desiree Goldey (30:06)

Night.

Yeah.

Ashley King (30:28)

So again, setting parameters around like these don't make indecisions. We don't use it to select candidates based off of we still go through that manually. Like you have to put parameters around what can be automated, what can use artificial intelligence and what things do strategic scaffolding do we have in place to make sure people don't put crap in, crap out and don't fall flat on their face with issues because of how they're doing this with lack of compliance. like.

There's layers, but I think what we need to know is like, the class isn't ready, dude. They're just not. The class isn't ready.

Desiree Goldey (31:02)

No, I mean,

come on. Like three years ago, people were, and we still say today that the talent system is broken, right? So here we go, we're introducing something else into the talent sphere when we haven't fixed the problems before and it just doesn't make any sense, right? The class is not ready, folks.

Ashley King (31:19)

Yeah, no, that doesn't make any sense to me yet. The class is not ready

and that's okay. But that means maybe ask questions whenever someone says, let's put some AI in this and just throw it in the smoothie mix and be like, ask a few questions.

Desiree Goldey (31:35)

You know what,

I was really surprised how fast, maybe I shouldn't be, maybe I'm just getting old, but I was really surprised how fast talent picked up AI.

Ashley King (31:45)

I'm not just because everyone already thinks talent when you can't be an engineer, when you can't do accounting, when you can't do whatever, you go be a recruiter. So it makes sense to me that they're like, we can ship this down the channel and just kick the can until we get XYZ. But honestly, I feel like they'll continue to keep doing that. Like no matter what it is, they think a dog could do our job.

Desiree Goldey (31:52)

Yeah, you better be a recruiter, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ashley King (32:08)

And it's because it's a lot of Dunning-Kruger. It's this idea that we are a bullet point on their job description. We are a part of HR that they were like, takes too much activity, kick it over there. And so we're like this little sister. both, the listeners know all these things. We've been through all this. The point I think of it all is, is we kind of got to be those little sisters that pipe up. Cause I can tell you right now, the HR folk, they don't know how.

Desiree Goldey (32:12)

Right.

Yes.

Ashley King (32:32)

AI and HR is way different than AI and TA. People in TA are like, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. People in HR were like, hold the phone. And to be honest, I wish we would have had a little bit more of that energy. I wish we would have said, hold the phone. Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (32:35)

absolutely. Right. All of you.

I agree. That's what I'm saying. That's what

I'm saying. That's what I'm like. The AI adoption and talent is like, just so much crazy so fast. Slow down. I know. I know.

Ashley King (32:51)

Well, but you also have to think HR tech is driven mainly by people not in HR. So they

see a window of we can make money, we can do this. I was a manager, I saw this problem, I can solve it with a hologram. That's how we ended up at HR tech with the whole thing. I mean, I'm telling you, it's it's madness on top of madness. We gotta settle these people out. What else we got girl? How are we doing?

Desiree Goldey (33:13)

Yeah, let's

end the last note talking about Canada experience because, not only just because I live in it right now, but also because it's such an important conversation that we talk about all the time. If you haven't listened to the episode we did with Bonnie Dilber, it's definitely worth a listen. But, you know, for me,

Ashley King (33:16)

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (33:31)

The one thing I hated about this avatar was like, after it, got some like very automated

response, right? And I was like, ew, this feels yucky, And that part for me is where I think you start to lose candidates and the candidate experience and I don't know. For me, it was just like a mixed bag. Like I didn't hate the experience, but I hated the response. I just felt weird.

Ashley King (33:56)

No, I get it. definitely think that we're seeing trends that again, because our area is so willing to be owned in HR tech by people who are not in HR that they have a willingness. They also don't understand compliance at all. Cause I can tell you right now, there are so many products out there we couldn't use if we even wanted to.

Desiree Goldey (34:11)

Yeah.

Ashley King (34:20)

Even if it was the best idea on the planet, the way that they have it set up, the way that it sinks into the ATS, all of the, like they have no concept to where even again, if we wanted to use some of your products, there's no way, because you have no guardrails in place. They have nothing. And so that's the other thing is a lot of people are coming out now with ATSs that run basically off of AI and they see this and they think, wow, what a solution because I had XYZ issues.

Desiree Goldey (34:20)

Right.

Ashley King (34:45)

you had XYZ issues because that is by design. That is what compliance is. I can't tell you how many managers want to create a product that basically they're describing whatever the compliance is that the HR or TA person put in place they want to circumvent. And it's like, again, this is on purpose. This was no accident. There's a reason your ATS and your CRM are usually divided. There's a reason that, so like all these different things. So that's why I say everybody that's on the big AI kick and everything, like one, we're ruining the water world. So just like chill.

Desiree Goldey (34:48)

Great.

Ashley King (35:13)

Two, it's like

Desiree Goldey (35:14)

Water world.

Ashley King (35:14)

they're using it for the dumbest, for the dumbest, like genuinely, we don't need a hologram to greet you. I'll send you a snail mail. Like anything would work more than that. Just so much to where there's so many products coming out of here. There's so much adoption and they're gonna keep seeing workday cases. You're gonna keep seeing big companies in tech who have been the ringleader of whatever falling from their graces because again,

Desiree Goldey (35:29)

It's crazy.

Ashley King (35:39)

These are products created by people who are not in HR, are not in TA, and they are using AI and technological efficiencies thinking that we're all dummies and we just don't know how to figure it out when in reality they bring us products that aren't compliant and now get us in trouble because there was no cross. And the reason that it was a mess is because it's designed by that for compliance. I always come back to ATSs whenever I think of this.

And it's something that you see so many new people like, we have this ETS we're selling, it's not gonna be sellable. You've created solutions that again, they were broken by design that wasn't an accident. But you never asked the question, you just started building.

Desiree Goldey (36:13)

Right.

I know, we've talked about this on our HR Tech episode, but I, you know, I never understand when someone does not have an advisor for an ATS who's a talent person.

Ashley King (36:29)

⁓ I think that's crazy bananas.

And if none of them on staff are NTA, that's where I'm like.

Desiree Goldey (36:35)

Right!

Let's be even more bizarre! Right?

Ashley King (36:38)

Okay, could you fathom me showing up

at like a surgical conference and just being like, I am creating things for surgeons and I can't wait for you to buy. And they're like, show me your product. And I'm like, so I used AI to find out what surgeons do from over here. And so I did all these things in AI and I made this because I thought like, what kind of dumb, but people do it all the time, all the time.

Desiree Goldey (36:54)

Right.

I don't know, it's insanity. All the time.

When I used to demo tech all the time, it was a long time, it was like a year of demoing HR tech. I would ask, who's your talent advisor?

Ashley King (37:15)

Always never hesitate.

Desiree Goldey (37:16)

And they'd

like never have an answer. No, we asked chat gp t what the problems were in Talentless. We built a product to fix it. Like it's just insanity. Anyway, I don't think AI might be my final thing before we get to Talent outside the box.

Ashley King (37:19)

You're like, what's a talent advisor?

Desiree Goldey (37:35)

is that I do not believe that recruiters will be ultimately completely replaced by AI. And I think you've heard that from so many of us in the talent industry, but I really want you to use it for the things that make your life easier and more efficient. And remember it hallucinates. That's my last point.

You

Ashley King (37:57)

Awesome. All right, y'all. Well, hey, talent outside the box today is actually kind of simple. And it's actually something that your girl has been working on. So one of the things that you could do as a talent leader to help kind of put strategy and also protection mechanisms around your TA members using Co-Pilot is to actually one, put parameters. So

Desiree Goldey (38:06)

⁓

Ashley King (38:21)

doesn't make indecision, doesn't whatever. Give people some logic, give people some parameters. But the other thing that you could do as a leader that is extremely beneficial is the difference between a recruiter and a strategic partner is what they show up to the table with. Meaning that if you are showing up to the table with just your plate, you are an order taker. If you are showing up to the table with Intel, if you are showing up to the table with strategy,

with information on how to conduct these different strategies, that's whenever you're a partner at this table and use Co-Pilot to do that. So what does that actually mean? For your team, create a Co-Pilot prompt library. Create one that says, with this job URL, so they can pull any job they need, if you could please make a go-to-market strategy, what is the outline persona? Who are all of the competitors that work here?

What are all the closest areas around this current open job that may have people that I could look at? What are some tech schools in the area? Are there any career events? I mean, give them a full 360 prompt that they can put into Co-Pilot. Let them add the JD from the URL and have it give them everything that they need for the strategy to go have their intake call with the manager and bring something more than their plate. It may not all be accurate.

It may not always be a solution, but it is a starting place so your managers can start receiving your TAs like they hold value at the table more than just taking what they say, jotting it down and trying to deliver. Why don't we actually be a strategic business partner to these functions? And you can harness Co-Pilot to do that. And as a manager, you should be setting up your team for success with that by setting up the parameters.

doing the prompt library and providing them with what they may need when they go to the table with these managers. Done. Boom. That's it, baby. That's the move.

Desiree Goldey (40:12)

Boom!

talentless people.

That's another episode for us. Please follow us and listen wherever you your podcast We're on Instagram blue sky LinkedIn tick tock YouTube All the things I also want to mention that we are collecting dumb dumb stories So if you haven't heard about this yet, we are collecting your crazy stories and talent We'd love to hear them you get a shout out on our show or if you want to stay anonymous, that's fine as well But we love to shout you out. Say you're one of our listeners and and feature your dumb dumb

Ashley King (40:29)

Yeah!

Yeah.

Desiree Goldey (40:45)

story and comment on it as well. So, and if you buy any merch from this store this year, which we love as well, please send us pics of those as well. You can always DM me Desiree Goldie. Do not DM Ashley. DM me Desiree Goldie and I will get back to you or you can sign up for those dumb dumb stories on our website. That's it for today folks. Bye.

Ashley King (40:48)

Woo!

Ashley is worthless.

Yay! Byeeee!