AI Takeover: Outsmarting the Machines in Your Job Hunt
00:13 - 00:49
Christian Napier: Well hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Teamwork a Better Way. I'm Christian Napier joined by the incomparable Spencer Horn. Spencer, how are you? I'm good Christian. How are you? I am doing alright. Yeah, doing good, doing good. Super excited to get this July out of the way man. It has been so hot Here in the Mountain West region and here in Salt Lake City That I don't know maybe 1 more month of really hot temperatures And then we're on the downhill slide to cooler temperatures and a beautiful fall. But you got to tell me
00:49 - 00:53
Christian Napier: about your weekend because you did something really cool.
00:53 - 01:33
Spencer Horn: Yeah, it was fun. I actually got out of the heat. I went up last Tuesday night to Park City to speak at a conference for a couple of nights. And then on Thursday, my wife and I left to Denver. Denver was also hot, but we went up to Vale, Beaver Creek, and then the Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday. And we were up over 11, 000 feet up above the tree line. And it was in the 40s in the morning, in the 50s. I mean, I love the Fahrenheit temperature guide, right? Like 40% hot, 50% hot,
01:33 - 01:59
Spencer Horn: 100% is 100% hot. So anything over that's just silly. But we were definitely enjoying the cool weather, went for a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was so busy though. Everybody had the same idea, getting out of the heat, I guess. But we're going back this Friday so we can do the hike that we missed on Friday. That's a little bit of my weekend. But I heard you had some delicious sourdough waffles last night.
01:59 - 02:15
Christian Napier: We did. My wife, you know, she's had this recipe that's been handed down from generation to generation along with the starter, you know, the sourdough starter that's been passed down from generation to generation. And so we had sourdough waffles, had family over. It's 1 of my favorites.
02:16 - 02:44
Spencer Horn: Well, that sounds that sounds delicious. You know, I learned something about mole that I didn't know. Maybe you know this. You know, you and I are big fans of mole sauce, right? When we go to Red Iguana. Shout out to Red Iguana here in Salt Lake City. But because they have so many different delicious moles, I'm headed to San Antonio in a couple of weeks and we were suggested that we try some mole at a couple of different restaurants. And 1 of them, they say that the mole they use has been going for, I don't know,
02:44 - 02:52
Spencer Horn: decades because apparently like sourdough, they use a little bit of it to keep making new batches. Have you heard that? I'd never heard that before.
02:52 - 02:57
Christian Napier: I hadn't heard that. That's quite interesting. Wow. Yes. I wonder if
02:57 - 03:06
Spencer Horn: there's some kind of bacteria that they have in the mole that makes the new batch taste like the old batch. I don't know.
03:06 - 03:12
Christian Napier: I don't know. But I mean, there's no way to to know except to go try it and see how
03:12 - 03:18
Spencer Horn: I'll research that a little bit more and let you know, because Just something I think you and I would be interested in.
03:20 - 04:03
Christian Napier: Well, sounds good. Hey, Spencer, I'm really intrigued by our topic today. I sent through a couple of articles that, quite Honestly, I felt pretty infuriated when I read them. 1 about the tactics that some hiring managers use to see whether an employee or a prospective employee is worth potentially hiring or not. Another 1 is the proliferation of AI and the creation of hundreds of thousands or millions of fake jobs for various reasons. And I got my reason about it. Yes, no,
04:06 - 04:48
Spencer Horn: I think it's justified. This is not Skynet where technology is killing people per se, but you are right to be frustrated. I want you to share with our listeners what's going on. We've had a few discussions about technology on this show, and this 1 is quite infuriating about the problems of AI. Why don't you talk about how the use of artificial intelligence in hiring is creating a problem for job seekers. Our title today is the AI Takeover, right? And outsmarting the machines in your job hunt. So it kind of does sound like, you know, we're trying
04:48 - 05:04
Spencer Horn: to take back Skynet and avoid being destroyed by our technology. Certainly in our job hunt that is affecting people's health, their emotional well-being, their financial well-being. I mean, there's a lot going on here. Yeah, there is a lot going on here.
05:05 - 05:45
Christian Napier: I mean, the statistics say that the labor market is very tight, but I found in my own job search, you know, I applied for so many jobs and, and it was frustrating to read, you know, some of the read about some of the, the things that companies are doing where they're posting fake jobs. AI is enabling this. We thought of AI as, oh, what are algorithms that our youth to screen our resumes? And I think that's where it really got its start. But now companies have realized, you know what? There are millions of job seekers, even
05:45 - 06:21
Christian Napier: though the labor market is quote unquote tight, there are millions and millions of people that are seeking jobs. I mean, LinkedIn has hundreds of millions of users, indeed has hundreds of millions of users, and companies have realized, hey, there's a market there that we can capitalize on to get our company in front of people. So they're creating fake jobs. They're, they're using AI to scrape job postings, to allow companies to generate their own job postings with very little effort. And these job postings aren't real.
06:22 - 06:59
Spencer Horn: And so I got that begs the question. So why would a company want to do that? I mean, there's it's really interesting. They're, they're creating fake posts. What? So that they have more a flood of incoming applicants that they then have to deal with or they just turn it over to AI. I mean, I get why a hiring manager would turn to AI to make their job easier, right? Hey, just post this thing for me. But it's more than that. It could actually be AI creating jobs, potential jobs or listings, right? Without necessarily somebody doing that
06:59 - 07:04
Spencer Horn: manually or going to AI and then posting, it's doing it automatically. Is that, is that what's happening and why?
07:04 - 07:40
Christian Napier: Yeah. So, so there are a variety of reasons. 1 is companies want to appear like they are successful companies. And so if they always have job postings online, it looks like they are expanding. It looks like they are growing. So it's a positive for the company in terms of their perception in the marketplace, hey, we're growing, we're hiring, when in fact they may not be hiring or growing. And that's also, I mean, that's for the benefit of employees, for the benefit of shareholders or whatever, right? They're trying to paint a picture.
07:40 - 07:53
Spencer Horn: Maybe increase the value of the stock. I mean, we're a growing company or, hey, I may have potential opportunities if I stay here instead of going to another job? I because there's so many openings, that means there's more opportunity for me to stay in this job. I mean, is that what you're saying?
07:54 - 08:23
Christian Napier: Yeah. And so that's 1 big reason. Another reason is just to drive website traffic. Well, I want just for SEO. Yeah, exactly. You know, So I'm trying to promote my business. I want to drive website. I can get thousands or tens of thousands of people coming to my site to visit my careers page just by putting this thing on LinkedIn and click on here and it takes you to my website. We also see it on LinkedIn.
08:23 - 08:32
Spencer Horn: So are you telling me people are using job seekers to promote their own company somehow, just through traffic?
08:33 - 09:00
Christian Napier: Yeah, I mean you see on LinkedIn, you know, there's easy apply. Well, a lot of people wanna do that. It's hard as a job seeker, it's like, wow, it's really hard to fill out the same stupid workday application Over and over and over again. You got to fill in all these fields and Even when you try to import your resume or bring it in from LinkedIn Sometimes it doesn't bring it all in correctly, and it's just such a pain so when you see that easy button Remember that member staples had the easy button commercial. Yeah, I
09:00 - 09:34
Christian Napier: do LinkedIn you know and and indeed they've got these easy buttons you know easy apply or quick reply or quick apply and you You press that and you maybe fill in a couple of fields and then boom you're applying and what happens on a lot of these is when you do that, there's a little check box, hey, follow our company's page. As a job seeker, you get a little paranoid, well if I don't follow the page, maybe I'm not gonna get an interview, right? So what do I do? I follow the page. Now the company's got
09:34 - 10:14
Christian Napier: thousands and thousands of followers. You know, so their profile is now enhanced on LinkedIn because they have all of these followers. Well, most of these followers are people who are trying to find a job. And that job may not even be real and I don't think that is disgusting behavior on the part of companies who are exploiting this this quote-unquote market of jobseekers for their own gain and not you know with without any real intent to actually hire a person. So, it's so interesting. I'm curious. I mean, a thought just comes to my mind and it
10:14 - 10:16
Christian Napier: seems like selfish behavior. Yet
10:17 - 10:39
Spencer Horn: is it in a way, are they trying to take advantage of or create an insurance policy so that if they do have an opening that they have access to the best candidates? In a way, they're trying to network and get people connected to them and, and, maybe create a pipeline for future or somehow give themselves an edge against their competition.
10:40 - 11:11
Christian Napier: That may be part of it, right? You know, they, they are creating banks of, of resumes and applicants, for, for, some future, some future need. And I understand the reasoning behind that. At the same time, what you're doing is giving false pretenses to prospective employees. Yeah, these are actually ghost jobs, so they don't exist. They don't exist, they're ghost jobs, they're vaporware.
11:14 - 11:30
Spencer Horn: Think about that, What is the impact on a job searcher? I mean, you just went through this. How does it impact someone if you hear nothing, you apply and nobody responds and maybe you send out applications to hundreds, maybe thousands of potential employers?
11:32 - 12:12
Christian Napier: It is really demoralizing, right? And it's a huge time waster to think shoot man. I may have spent I may have spent all of this time You know writing cover letters and you know filling out these applications online and many of those positions, they didn't even exist. Sometimes these companies, they'll have positions that were closed, but they'll keep them open. So you think they're open, but they're actually closed. And Again, they're just collecting resumes or they're trying to drive traffic to sites or whatnot and now Spencer's you know from reading these articles, and I also you
12:12 - 12:33
Christian Napier: know I've seen experiences shared online like on reddit and stuff about this you you have malicious actors who are using AI to generate these ghost jobs to have people apply and share personal information that could be used to steal people's identities.
12:36 - 12:38
Spencer Horn: It's or sell them something that they don't need.
12:39 - 12:47
Christian Napier: Yeah. I mean, I don't know about you. I get texts quite frequently from Hey, you know, got a remote position, blah, blah, blah.
12:49 - 12:51
Spencer Horn: Every day I get texts almost every day
12:52 - 13:32
Christian Napier: you get those all the time in most cases those are fake listings Those are fake opportunities and you know there have been documented cases where these folks, they create, you know, through the power of AI, they not only create this fake posting, but they will create fake interactions. So you receive an email to schedule an interview. You might even have some kind of virtual interview with an AI. You may receive an offer. And when you receive that offer, they'll ask you to accept that offer. And then they want to onboard you. So as part of that,
13:32 - 14:02
Christian Napier: they send you documentation. They ask you for bank account information so that you can do direct deposit and all this kind of stuff and it's not even a real job they're just they're just posting these things online to capture vulnerable people who are seeking employment, looking for some way to get some income, and they'll create an entire recruitment selection and onboarding process with the sole purpose of stealing your information.
14:02 - 14:08
Spencer Horn: Who spends that much time on something so diabolical? I don't
14:08 - 14:10
Christian Napier: know, there are a lot of malicious
14:10 - 14:32
Spencer Horn: actors, but. So you've highlighted to me a paradox, because you say that, and rightfully so, you say that job seekers are spending so much time. Well, isn't AI supposed to save us time? So then what do job seekers do? They, so they gotta beat the system too somehow, right?
14:33 - 14:46
Christian Napier: Yeah, I mean, so what do we do? We use chat GPT to try to figure out how to structure our resumes and the keywords that we're supposed to be using and so on and so forth so we can make it past the AI gatekeepers of resumes.
14:47 - 14:56
Spencer Horn: So we're fighting fire with fire. So job seekers are using AI to beat the system. And so it's just machines are fighting against machines right now.
14:59 - 15:39
Christian Napier: It is, And you know, coming back to some of the points that you made in email before we convened this morning, when it's machines against machines, you gotta find real people to talk to. I think that's a critical thing. Everybody talks about networking. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this as well, Spencer, but ultimately, I mean, that's what worked in my own search, was a network connection. It wasn't going through and just applying it for a job online. And I wondered to myself, shoot, I probably applied for 2000 jobs.
15:40 - 15:41
Spencer Horn: 2000 jobs?
15:42 - 16:12
Christian Napier: And in a year, you know, and ultimately what worked out was, it was a networking connection and, and those are going to be, I think, generally speaking, far more successful than, you know, just finding, you know, searching for things online and then just applying online for things and So I'm curious to hear your thoughts about You know the the importance of maintaining relationships and networks
16:21 - 16:24
Spencer Horn: Sorry, I cut you off I
16:24 - 16:27
Christian Napier: was just gonna say I think that's the number 1 thing that people can
16:27 - 17:04
Spencer Horn: do, but it's not always easy. No, it's not. And so this is really a conundrum. If you're out there looking for work, I 100% believe that 1 of the most important things that you can do is work on your human skills. We are learning so much about AI and how to use it, how to write prompts and how to get the tools to work for us and make our jobs easier. But in this instance, the technology is actually making our job harder. And the skills that we need to succeed are the ones that we're not practicing
17:04 - 17:38
Spencer Horn: as much perhaps because we're so focused on what was the right prompt language. I think those are good things to learn. I mean, understanding how to be a prompt engineer, right? To be able to get the technology to work for me. Last time we talked on our last episode, you talked about a friend that you knew that actually had AI create code, right? Everything he needed to do, just told the bot what it needed to do. And luckily he was an engineer, so he knew how to do the prompts to ask. But those are not the
17:38 - 18:20
Spencer Horn: skills that we're talking about that are going to help you find a job. And so we need to reverse the atrophy on our human skills and resurrect the good old-fashioned, who do you know, networking style, because that's ultimately what helped in your case. I mean, I know that when people meet you, Christian, it's really hard for them not to be impressed. When they, when they speak to you, when they understand your depth of knowledge, when they hear how articulate you are and consider it empathetic, All those things that are missing in high level positions are so
18:20 - 19:01
Spencer Horn: easily apparent when you have the ability to express those in a way that a job provider will just take that and snatch it up. But the problem is that they're relying on so many of these tools to find the candidates to make their job easier. Who is it that's getting through? Well, Do you want to bet on the system accepting your resume or do you want to short circuit that system and find someone that can actually recommend you to a hirer? For me, I think that's, you might have to do both, don't you think? So our
19:01 - 19:02
Spencer Horn: lives aren't getting easier.
19:03 - 19:34
Christian Napier: Well, certainly it's discouraging if you're a job seeker and you go online and you see a job on LinkedIn you really like and then you see that you're 1 out of 784 candidates or 1 out of 2, 356 candidates. And you think to yourself, I've got no shot. I mean, I'm 1 of, there's so many people who've applied for jobs and so the question is what can you do in order to get the face-to-face because that can change everything but you've got to get the face to face.
19:35 - 19:37
Spencer Horn: Number 1 is more of a long game.
19:38 - 20:08
Christian Napier: Yeah, I think you know number 1 is is is the networking thing, but even if you're networked, the hiring manager in the company is going to look at a few artifacts, right? Number 1, they're probably going to go to your LinkedIn profile. 100%. 2, you're still probably going to fill out an application. You're going to have to go through the sausage making factory there. And so those things like resumes and cover letters and your LinkedIn profile, you've got to make sure that they're up to date and they're relevant. And AI can help you with this. But-
20:08 - 20:10
Christian Napier: Christian, I spend a lot of time,
20:15 - 20:57
Spencer Horn: and I actually, yeah, I'm not AI. I spend time with people helping them optimize their LinkedIn profile. A lot of people come to me because if you're going to use LinkedIn as a networking tool, let's just say, for example, Let me just share a potential networking process that someone might utilize to help them find potential career opportunities. Let's say that you find a company that you're interested in working for. That maybe you feel like would, would help you to utilize your skills. They may not have a job opening or they do, but you want to work
20:57 - 21:30
Spencer Horn: for that company eventually. My suggestion is, is that you start networking with people that are in that company. That they know a hiring manager that have a position of authority that can introduce you to somebody within that company. And there's several ways to do that. You can legally stalk people on social media, especially on LinkedIn. You can search their LinkedIn profile. Now you can turn off whether people see you or not, but I like to know if people are looking for me and I don't mind if they know that I'm looking at them, So I don't
21:30 - 22:04
Spencer Horn: ever turn that off. But if I see, hey, I see Christian Napier as somebody that I might want to connect with, I'm going to look at your profile. I'm going to look at everything that you post. Now, not everybody's active on LinkedIn, but if they are, 1 of the strategies that you want to utilize is to give, not to take, right? Not to ask, do you know somebody? Can you, hey, can you connect with me? Can you introduce me to? Instead, you wanna start commenting on maybe articles or posts that they've made and add value. Hey,
22:04 - 22:37
Spencer Horn: Christian, I really liked what you were talking about, the challenges of hiring in your article or your post on LinkedIn. Or actually, I read an article somewhere or I might send you a message. I really was impressed with your take on X, Y, and Z. I agree with you and here's what else I believe." So what you would then do after you let the person you're commenting on their post know that you actually read their article. That's very flattering to somebody when you take the time to read their article and then comment on it. I love
22:37 - 23:13
Spencer Horn: it when people do that for me. And it always causes me to respond to them in kind. That's called the reciprocity bias. If you do something for somebody, they want to return that favor. So you give, I mean, most people who are not, you know, pathological or whatever, they're going to want to reciprocate in some way. So you make a comment and then you add value, maybe some insight that you might have, and you tag them in your response. And so what happens is they will then be notified, hey, some guy by the name of Spencer
23:13 - 23:50
Spencer Horn: commented on your post, Christian. You go then read it, and all of a sudden you know who I am. You may not know me but you know some person by the name of Spencer commented on your post. Well, what are you then going to do most likely? Who's Spencer? You might then click on my name and where's that going to take you? To my LinkedIn page. Your turn now to reverse stock me to see if I'm a credible individual. This is where your LinkedIn profile has to be fantastic. It has to be up to date. You
23:50 - 24:21
Spencer Horn: have to use the real estate available to you to promote yourself in a positive way. This is you selling without selling because now if I'm interested and I wanna know who, you know, whoever is that commented on my post is I'm going to go to their LinkedIn profile and I'm going to see, this is an impressive person. That is 1 of the first steps. So you're commenting on them. They might come and reverse stock you and they look at your post to see if this somebody's trying to sell me something or they are a legitimate person
24:22 - 25:02
Spencer Horn: that has value that can bring to my network. Do they have knowledge and information and experience that I would be proud to be associated with? Now, they may not connect with you in that moment, but I promise you when you reach out to them to connect with them, they're going to know your name now. And so the likelihood of them accepting your invitation to connect on LinkedIn goes way up. Once you have them as a contact, you want to make sure that you're not abusing that relationship. Again, you're still giving, And maybe the opportunity then becomes
25:02 - 25:38
Spencer Horn: to take that online connection offline. And so how might you do that? Hey, Christian, thank you for accepting my invitation. I'm honored. But before I do that, my invitation to you has to be personalized. Christian, I'm really impressed with the work that you've done with the IOC and in several organizing committees. I see your experience in big game environments and also the work you're doing in artificial intelligence and I have similar interests in X, Y, and Z, I'd really be honored if you'd be willing to connect with me. It shows you, hopefully, that I've actually done
25:38 - 26:06
Spencer Horn: some homework on you and I have some similar interests. And so then, again, your likelihood of you accepting my invitation to connect possibly goes up. Not right away, but eventually. That's why it takes time. You can't just do this when you're desperate for a job. This needs to be an ongoing networking methodology. And then what happens is that at some point, I'm going to reach out to you and say, hey, you know, I'm so glad that you're part of my network. I'd love to just have a conversation and get to know a little bit more about
26:06 - 26:19
Spencer Horn: what you do at XYZ company. I mean, I see your experience and I'm really interested in the work that you do. Would you be willing to have a 15 minute introductory conversation? I'm not. Yeah, there are.
26:19 - 26:58
Christian Napier: I love this. I love this. There are 2 things, you know, aside from making sure that your profile is up to date and everything, There are 2 things that could make or break your ability to connect and network in this way. 1 is the tagline or your headline that accompanies your name. And the other is that open to work thing. So I don't, I don't like tagline on the tagline. You know, if, if you've got sales oriented language in there, I help companies do this, I transform, blah, blah, blah. Then when- They know you're gonna
26:58 - 26:59
Spencer Horn: sell them something.
27:00 - 27:30
Christian Napier: When they see your comment and they see the first part of that tagline they're like, this is a salesperson. That's right. Not really interested in what I have to say, but it, you know, has some ulterior motive. The same thing can happen with the open to work tag. If You have this open to work thing there. It's like, oh, here's a person looking for a job. May not actually be interested in what I have to say. And it sounds terrible, right? But my recommendation to people would be get rid of it. Consider turning that thing off.
27:30 - 27:45
Christian Napier: Don't turn that open to work thing on because you don't want to, you don't wanna bias this potential connection that you're looking for and to say, oh, well, he's just connecting or she's just connecting because she's looking for work.
27:46 - 28:01
Spencer Horn: I 100% agree and it shows that you're desperate and part of this is you're putting out a message that you are somebody that people want to connect with and you are. The problem is when you're looking for a job That's when you're desperate.
28:01 - 28:06
Christian Napier: I mean, and I fell into that trap. I was thinking to myself, oh, well, you know what? People need to know that
28:06 - 28:21
Spencer Horn: I. No, because who do you, who do you, now that you're, now that you're in hiring position, Christian, let me just ask you a point, Blake, who do you wanna hire? Somebody that's working for a competitor that's providing value or somebody that has got let go and is desperate.
28:23 - 28:29
Christian Napier: Yeah, I mean, truth be told, I wanna hire the best person, right?
28:29 - 28:57
Spencer Horn: Yeah, but the people who are on the job boards, listen, I don't wanna offend anybody, but who are typically the people on the job boards? Listen, I've been on the job board, but here's the thing. The people you're hiring on those job boards are you're trying to find the best of the worst or the cream of the crap, right? And that may offend somebody, but if you're a job hunter, you want to find someone that's already got an ongoing opportunity and you want to steal them away. Why? Because they're in demand. If you're desperate, you're not
28:57 - 29:00
Spencer Horn: in demand. And that's, And
29:01 - 29:44
Christian Napier: that's the problem, right? If it's so easy, it's so easy for a hiring manager or for HR to just screen people out if they go and visit a profile and they see that open to work tag or whatever it is, or they see this discombobulated LinkedIn profile it's like, okay next And you're just not getting consideration and it's for you know from a job seekers perspective it's from it's for it looks like it's silly, but you know, people are, you know, employers are getting a lot of applications and it's time consuming to screen those, screen those.
29:44 - 29:54
Christian Napier: And so they'll use these kinds of tactics to shorten the amount of effort that are less than the amount of effort that they have to put into actually reviewing everything. And so,
29:54 - 30:32
Spencer Horn: and it's actually, it's a paradox because it's making the machines are making our life more difficult. It's making it harder for hiring people to find better people. Because they're screening out your resume if it's AI written. They're looking to make sure that it's actually your voice. So be very, very careful about what you're doing. This LinkedIn methodology that I'm sharing is 1 way to network online. But the entire purpose of this engagement that I've just described for you on LinkedIn is to get offline, to get face to face with people. And I do this all the
30:32 - 31:08
Spencer Horn: time. I will connect with people on LinkedIn. And then when I am in their community, no matter where they are in the world, is, hey, I'm going to be in your city. I'd love to meet you for coffee. And sometimes they're skeptical and rightfully so. I had 1 person who was the executive director of a hospice in Pueblo, Colorado, met me for breakfast and ended up hiring me for speaking to her team. That's the whole point. These are complete strangers. I have friends that are very good friends to this day that I have met through LinkedIn
31:08 - 31:44
Spencer Horn: as complete strangers. And 1 of them you happen to know and work with, right? Melissa. Yeah, yeah. So she's an example of somebody that I have actually never met in person. We met completely as strangers on LinkedIn, connected with her. I've been on her podcast, she's been on mine. She actually works with you on her podcast. So that's an example of relationships that come from networking online, if you know how to do it. Isn't she a great human being?
31:44 - 32:13
Christian Napier: Yeah, She's awesome. She's awesome. And so it can work. You can use these tools to connect with people. That's the whole point of them is to connect with people. But you just have to overcome a lot of obstacles that the tools store your way, sometimes intentionally or sometimes inadvertently, like the open to work thing. I'm sure the folks at LinkedIn thought, hey, this is a great idea. We have this open to work tag.
32:13 - 32:14
Spencer Horn: I think it's backfiring.
32:15 - 32:39
Christian Napier: And it makes it easy for people to find who's actually looking for a job and, you know, those kinds of, features they, when they release them, they don't necessarily take into consideration the human behavioral aspects. Like how is, how is somebody actually going to look at this? And it turns out being a detriment instead of a help.
32:40 - 32:49
Spencer Horn: Absolutely. So what should we do now? Should we talk about some strategies to help job seekers? In addition
32:50 - 33:00
Christian Napier: to- I mean, we've talked about some of those already, which is kind of making sure that, you know, you're using AI to your own best capability. And how do
33:00 - 33:10
Spencer Horn: you do that? So, yeah, you're using LinkedIn, but how can you use AI with your resume, with your interviewing? Let's talk about that for a moment.
33:12 - 34:00
Christian Napier: Well, you've seen this, you know, chat GPT, you can ask it to do about anything and it'll give you an answer. And so many people are using tools like ChatGPT to optimize their resumes. You know, 1 of the things to be careful about though is sometimes it can appear like your resume was written by AI. The words that are used, the length of descriptions and things and so on and so forth. And so it can be dangerous to just rely exclusively on ASA. Hey, create a resume for a person who is looking for a job in
34:00 - 34:19
Christian Napier: DevOps who has, you know, C-sharp and Visual Studio skills. And, you know, it'll do that, or you can even ask, you know, in some of these AIs, you can upload your resume and ask it to stylize it or formalize it. I think 1 of
34:19 - 34:54
Spencer Horn: the ways you can use that is to say, what are the search words that someone looking for me would be looking for? So what are the keywords? So that's SEO, that's optimization of your resume, then you can put it in your voice. I mean, you never want to just take what the AI gives you and put that on your resume, but you can find keywords. You can find phrases that you could then integrate into your resume. So here's a couple of other, so that's 1 way that you could use AI to spice up your resume without
34:54 - 35:33
Spencer Horn: replacing your voice, but to find keywords for you to integrate into your resume. You could also create a website. Create a, it's so easy today to create a website. Could you imagine Christian, a Christian Napier website? Not, I'm not talking about your businesses. I'm talking about a Christian Napier website, which is essentially what LinkedIn is, right? It's, it's a ongoing resume, but AAA website can do a little bit more. You can talk about your experiences. You could have video, you can have, you know, images of you in action or talking. I mean, there's so many things
35:33 - 36:09
Spencer Horn: that people can do to learn about you if you had a website. I think it shows effort and creativity. So that's 1 of the things that you could do to use technology to help you create a website. So for example, I used, I haven't implemented it yet, but I had ChatGPT review all the language that I had written and my marketing people and my team on our website. And I wanted the language of our website to be more customer centric. Because so often on our websites we're bragging, you know, we do this and we do that.
36:10 - 36:44
Spencer Horn: And I'm like, that's a mistake. I was actually talking to some folks at an association of builders, associated builders and contractors. And they had that whole session on AI at a conference I was speaking at. And I told this director that I used AI to change the language of our website, which I again, I haven't uploaded it yet, but to make it more customer centric. And it was fantastic. The language that it gave, it just took what we had and adjusted a little bit so that people reading it would feel like it was talking to them
36:44 - 36:51
Spencer Horn: instead of us talking about ourselves. And maybe that's a way that you can use AI on your resume. What do you think?
36:51 - 37:32
Christian Napier: I think it's a great way to do that. Another thing you can do with AI is to help you with interview preparation, right? Yes. Hey, you know, here are, you know, what are some of the common questions that are asked in interviews? What are some of the curve balls questions that are asked in interviews? And you know, What would be the ideal responses to those? And so that can be really interesting as well. Depending on the AI, if they are current or if it connects with search, you can ask AI to provide some summaries about the
37:32 - 37:41
Christian Napier: company and what it's about. Do a little bit of research and homework. Sometimes it's hard to kind of dig through a company's website to understand all that stuff.
37:41 - 37:57
Spencer Horn: And so. And that research is important for a couple of reasons, not only to prepare you for the interview, but to make sure that the, that the job posting is legitimate. You want to make sure that you're protecting yourself against some of these scams that are out there. So do your research on the company to see if it's, if they're actually hiring.
37:58 - 38:03
Christian Napier: Yeah. So, I mean, there are a lot of different practical ways that you can use AI, I think.
38:04 - 38:55
Spencer Horn: Can I share a couple of these interview AI apps out there? Yeah. And they do many different things. So for example, Interview Warm-Up by Google offers practice interview questions in various fields and uses AI to transcribe and analyze your responses. So again, practicing and preparing for the question, You can have these AI applications actually score your interview performance. They provide feedback on your answers, helping you to improve your responses. Then there is my interview practice, which simulates real interview scenarios with a whole bunch of questions. And then record your answer for review. That's 1 of the
38:55 - 39:30
Spencer Horn: best things that you can do. If you ever want to get better at something when I'm speaking, I always try to look at video or recordings of myself and I say try because it's so awful and hard to watch myself. It's really difficult, but that's really 1 of the best ways to get better. Notice what you're saying, how you're saying, what are the patterns that you're using that may be beneficial or actually hurtful. There's an app called HireVue. There's a lot of companies that are actually using video interviewing processes where you don't even talk to an
39:30 - 40:23
Spencer Horn: HR hiring person, but you record your responses on video. And this will help you practice and analyze your performance. Big Interview is another app, combines AI and human expertise to offer interview preparation. Again, practice questions. There's V-Mock, job scan interview coach, interview AI by Ultimate Software, Yodlee, mock interview by Pramp, Code Signal. We'll put these in the show notes if you want some information about these different AI apps that can help you. But nothing beats, I think, just practicing talking to people in your network. Talk to people who regularly are hiring people. What are you looking
40:23 - 40:37
Spencer Horn: for? What are the challenges? What is it that frustrates you about applicants? What's a turnoff to you when you talk to people who hire and get from them what they want?
40:39 - 41:16
Christian Napier: Yeah, I agree with that. I wanna come back to the AI interview helpers where you record things. Is there a danger? Well, there is a risk, and the risk is that you, as a job seeker, can spend a lot of time trying to perfect responses, right? Yeah. You get asked a question, you give a response, you get a score of X, you're aiming for Y, you do it again, and You do it again, and you do it again, and you do it again. And I think you can do that, and it can be healthy. But if
41:16 - 41:47
Christian Napier: you're not careful about it, it can really add a lot of stress to you because it can be very time consuming to practice these things over and over and over again. And you can start to see all those insecurities. Like you said for yourself, man, I hate how I look on camera, right? I don't like the sound of my voice and, and, you know, while, well, you know, while you kind of want to say, well, get over yourself because everybody else in the world sees you as the way you're seeing yourself here on, on, on camera
41:47 - 42:19
Christian Napier: and the way your voice sounds on this recording, you know, it can have an impact on your psyche. And I think you just have to be aware of that going in. And if you start feeling like you're getting stressed out by this process, then stop, take a break or, you know, just put it down for a little while because it can create a lot of stress for people who are it's like you're studying for the ACT or the SATs or something like this and and You know you can spend a huge amount of time if you're
42:19 - 42:40
Christian Napier: not careful and it can be damaging emotionally and psychologically if you go overboard on these interview prep things. I just wanted to make that that point. You just be aware of your own emotional health and well-being. And if you feel like these tools are really stressing you out, then it's really not worth it.
42:54 - 43:32
Spencer Horn: I just needed to scratch my head a minute, so I needed to, you know. You're exactly right. I agree with you. Your mental well-being is already challenged when you're looking for a job and people are fighting depression. I'm actually talking to someone that I had met on the circuit speaking who has become a friend and who's reached out to me completely demoralized to the point of potentially doing self harm. And so this is not just something that we're lightly talking about here. And I believe the other thing that can happen is that you can lose your
43:32 - 44:19
Spencer Horn: own voice and your own self. I remember hearing about Zappos, if you remember the online shoe company based in Las Vegas. Culture was so big for them. When they hired you, they would actually give you at, at the 90 day point, you know, that's when someone really gets their benefits or they, they become accepted into the company. They would pay people $1, 500 to quit because they only wanted people in the company that would stay there for the right reasons to fit the culture of Zappos. And as part of the hiring process, if they had people
44:19 - 44:53
Spencer Horn: coming in from out of town, they would have a limousine, kind of a bus, pick them up from the airport. They'd bring groups of people in at a time because they would do their hiring in batches. And the person who was actually driving the coach was an HR manager. And of course nobody knew that, they just thought this was our limo driver. And all the while this person who's driving the bus is watching the interactions between everybody, how they're talking to each other, if they're talking, what are they doing, how are they treating people. That was
44:53 - 45:32
Spencer Horn: the first step in the live interview process. And many people would get there to the headquarters at Zappos and were immediately taken back to the airport saying, your interview's over. Because they were either rude or dismissive or not interacting and therefore not who the company wanted to hire. I love that in-person interview process, just watching how people are in a real life scenario. And I think we, we lose so much of our humanity when we rely so much on machines to speak for us, to work for us, we lose some of our creativity and our human
45:32 - 45:50
Spencer Horn: skills begin to atrophy. And so I'm, I, my caution is, is continue to stimulate and develop your ability to connect with and build relationships with other people.
45:51 - 46:33
Christian Napier: I agree with that Spencer. I wanna come back to what you just said about in these selection processes when it comes to in-person interactions. That takes me to another article that we looked at earlier. And it was, you know, there was a hiring manager who would intentionally loosen a screw on a chair to make it unbalanced and then have another chair next to the to that and Would only consider hiring a person who asked if they could take the other chair or would take the other chair, right? Because it showed some initiative. And okay, I get
46:33 - 47:12
Christian Napier: that, but at the same time, I think above all, as organizations who profess that employees are our number 1 liability and we want to take care of our employees and we want to create a culture, you know, an employee focused culture. When you pull that kind of stuff, your employees are not number 1. When you're conducting science experiments with real human beings, I think it's honestly, I mean, not to single this individual out, but I honestly think that that behavior is disgraceful. I actually think
47:12 - 47:51
Spencer Horn: it's introducing bias into the hiring process. Because there are certain personalities that are gonna be more comfortable speaking up than others. Some personalities which make some of the best employees ever are so considerate or are willing to take abuse almost, not that we would ever do that, but almost that it is kind of abusive to do that to them. They would take that not to offend somebody. I think those are great traits to have in an employee. This person was actually looking for people that were more assertive or, I don't know. I think that that could
47:51 - 47:57
Spencer Horn: introduce some interesting biases into the hiring process and into the culture of the team.
47:58 - 48:45
Christian Napier: I agree with that. And like I say, I think, you know, when people come into this kind of interview scenario, right, when you're actually meeting person in person, or, you know, maybe it'll be virtual as well, You know, everybody comes in with a certain set of assumptions about how that process is going to go. And when you, as a hiring manager, subvert those assumptions for your own gain, I think you're taking advantage of people. And I just, you know, you're not, in my opinion, you're not being respectful of another person's time. If the shoe were on
48:45 - 49:27
Christian Napier: the other foot, or if you looked at it from a customer company interaction, and you had a potential client coming in, and you're gonna have a conversation with that client, Would you purposefully leave a screw loose and unbalance a chair? What you're telling people, you would never do that. Who would ever do that kind of thing? You would be an idiot if you treat the customer that way, right? So companies who say, yeah, our employees are so important. And then you treat your prospective employees, the applicants like this, when you kind of put them like rats
49:27 - 49:40
Christian Napier: in a maze and you see who's gonna get the cheese nut. I just think it's so disrespectful because you would never treat a customer that way. You would never set a chair up, 2 chairs up here with a screw loose in 1 of them and see, well, let's see what the customer does.
49:41 - 49:44
Spencer Horn: I'm so glad we get you fired up about this. We actually have a comment.
49:45 - 50:30
Christian Napier: It just irks me because people who are looking for jobs, they are desperate and in many cases. And when you play on that and you think, oh, I'm gonna conduct these funny little science experiments to help in the natural selection process. I just think that you are robbing people of their dignity. You're not really taking into consideration, hey, this is a real person sitting over here. No kidding. You have real needs. And you know, it's not an empathetic way to select employees at all. And I think that those kinds of practices should be super discouraged in
50:30 - 50:36
Christian Napier: organizations. I think they reflect badly on the organization. You know, you can do that kind of stuff.
50:36 - 51:17
Spencer Horn: So Stacey says, cultural fit is vital to everyone. I agree cultural fit is important. However, you can have a cultural fit where people are aligned with the mission and values of the organization, but are diverse in their cognitive diversity and their behavioral approach. So we want to make sure that we are not introducing bias into the hiring practice, but yet find people that have a cultural fit that also bring a variety of perspectives. And we know that that is very helpful. Listen, if you have very simple problems to solve, you want like-minded people to quickly solve
51:17 - 51:44
Spencer Horn: it because they can coalesce very, very quickly. But if you have difficult problems to solve in your company, in your organization, your team, you need that diversity of thought. It's messier to have that diversity of thought, but the outcomes are ultimately better, especially when you're dealing with very difficult problems. So we have a couple more, Stacey's feeling it right now. So I'm gonna add a couple of her comments to the show here. Christian, what do you think about this comment?
51:47 - 52:29
Christian Napier: You know, this is really interesting. The interview is preoccupied. Hasn't even looked at a resume prior to starting the interview. You know, I think this depends on whether it's like an HR screening interview or a hiring manager interview. As a hiring manager, not as an HR screener, but as a hiring manager, I definitely take my time to read the resumes because I wanna make sure that I am selecting people to interview who really have the skills and experience that I'm looking for in that role. And so, you know, I do take time to read resumes to
52:29 - 53:03
Christian Napier: figure out what kind of experience they have and so on and so forth prior to interviewing them. I need to know, you know, as part of that selection process. But an HR screener, you know, is just trying to get through a huge pile of stuff. Right. And so, you know, maybe they haven't looked at anything or they've just looked at, they schedule the interview and they pull up what the applicant tracking system has extracted from your resume online or whatever. And then they've got a series of questions that they're gonna ask you And then that's it,
53:03 - 53:29
Christian Napier: right? So they're not necessarily, and I don't want to paint them all with the same disparaging brush, but I know that they're overwhelmed. And so they're paid away. Go ahead. But they may not be as invested as a hiring manager is because I'm like, I gotta live and work with this person, 8 hours a day or more, 5 days a week or more.
53:31 - 54:07
Spencer Horn: 1 of our listeners that said, how can you stand out in an interview? What can you do to separate yourself? Christian, I wanna answer this. I think 1 of the things that you can do is Do your homework on the company. Don't just show up for an interview. Be prepared. Know who they are. Know who the person is that you're talking to. If you don't, call in advance. Do some homework on that individual. Know who you're going to be talking to and know some things about them. They've got information on you. They've got your resume. I
54:07 - 54:41
Spencer Horn: guarantee you they've gone to your LinkedIn or possibly done other social media searches on you. Do the same for them so that you come in prepared, having a little bit of respect by building a common ground saying, hey, I noticed that you do this for the company and just have something that you can find in common. For me, that's 1 of the main things that you can do to stand out. It shows that you care, you've done your homework and that you're somebody that is thoughtful. Other suggestions that you might have?
54:44 - 55:28
Christian Napier: Shoot, I mean coming back to the question, you know, Stacey asked, what can you do to help candidates spark attention right out of the gate? Yeah. So, you know, there are things that you can do and you probably are better positioned to answer this Than than I am because you help so many people with linkedin and profiles There but you know having that profile not only updated But you know there are if you know who your audience is going to be, maybe there are certain keywords or phrases or ways, things, ways you can present yourself to
55:28 - 56:11
Christian Napier: help you stand right out. But I want to come back to something that you mentioned earlier, Spencer, which is, engaging with people on LinkedIn in, in a reciprocal dialogue, you know, so you want to stand out with someone. I really think that's a great way to do it. You know go ahead figure out who they are and See their posts and start interacting start engaging with them now it can be difficult at times because a very small percentage of LinkedIn users are actually actively posting content. That's right. So it may be that I want to go
56:11 - 56:34
Christian Napier: work for company X, but the people that I really need to connect with there, they're just not active on LinkedIn. And so it becomes a little bit more difficult to engage with them because they're not actively posting and responding to comments and so on and so forth. But if they are, Then engaging them through comments, I think is a great way to go.
56:34 - 57:11
Spencer Horn: I'm doing that right now to somebody on on LinkedIn. Stacy, who asked a question. I'm just responding to her comment here live on the show, trying to provide value since we ended that show. And so again, what can you suggest to help candidates spark the attention right out of the gate? Those are a few things that you can do. What else can we do? Well, there's a few things. Let's wrap up with this. We've talked, Christian, about using AI to help beef up your resume, specifically with things like search words and helping you prepare it for
57:11 - 57:49
Spencer Horn: the AI that's going to review it. Make sure, though, that you're putting it in your voice using some of the key phrases that AI gives you. Use AI tools to help you prepare for the interview. But when it comes to this show, we are all about teamwork. We are all about connection. We are all about working with humans. And so some of the most important things that you can do are leverage your own personal contacts. Talk to the people who care about you the most. It's not who you know that's going to help you find a
57:49 - 58:33
Spencer Horn: job. It's who you know knows. So talk to your connections and they can talk to other people or find different opportunities. I'm constantly doing that or making referrals and opportunities or sharing ideas that I know with people. You had a job post at the state and I connected you with somebody in my network. Do that for people. Do that for... People will do that for you. And that is, there's another bias, and it's escaping me what it is, but people want to help you. And it's similarity bias, right? You're typically biased towards people who went to
58:33 - 59:18
Spencer Horn: your college, like your sports teams, know you, knew your family. You know, we use babysitters who we trust in the neighborhood, whose parents that we know, because of the similarity bias. So lean on those contacts that know you to help you and support you. I think that's 1 thing that you can do. There are other professional networking opportunities outside of LinkedIn. Join associations of your profession. Go to those meetings. You know, the Project Management Institute has meetings and they have job boards and they have, at their events they have companies that sponsor those events that you
59:18 - 59:32
Spencer Horn: can go meet with and connect with and develop relationships with, find of your peers that work at jobs that you're interested in to get to know them and, and, see if they'd be willing to introduce you to people within that organization.
59:35 - 59:52
Christian Napier: I think those are fantastic, fantastic recommendations, Spencer, and we've gone over our hour. Of course, we had a little technical issue there as we were wrapping up, but anything else that you want to highlight before we conclude our conversation today?
59:52 - 01:00:00
Spencer Horn: No, Krishna, just thank you for your time and listeners, I apologize for my craziness. I press the right button.
01:00:00 - 01:00:06
Speaker 1: Button and freak out. That's just the way it is.
01:00:06 - 01:00:16
Speaker 2: That's real life. It is real life. So we appreciate you listeners. Spencer, you've done so much work for so many people helping develop high-performing teams.
01:00:17 - 01:00:43
Speaker 1: What's the best way for our viewers or listeners to reach out and connect with you? On LinkedIn, just contact me, send me a message, I'll respond unless you're trying to sell me something or you're, You know what really ticks me off is somebody has a profile and then they turned out to be somebody else and there are fake profiles on LinkedIn all the time and it just cheeses me off. So make sure you're a real person when you reach out to me.
01:00:44 - 01:00:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, the proliferation of AI generated LinkedIn profiles
01:00:49 - 01:00:49
Speaker 1: is just astounding. And don't text me and say, Hey, are we meeting for lunch? Are we still on
01:00:49 - 01:00:50
Speaker 2: for golf? I get those about 4 times
01:00:50 - 01:01:15
Speaker 1: a day, text messages on, hey, are you busy? And they're just, it's always a scam, but Christian, so many people are, get to hear you on this platform and have to be impressed with your with your depth of knowledge and your compassion and just your skills how can how can people get to know you more?
01:01:16 - 01:01:37
Speaker 2: LinkedIn as well Just look for Christian Napier on LinkedIn and let's connect. I'm happy to speak with anybody. Let's connect. Real. All right, well Spencer, it's been a wonderful hour. Thank you for spending the time today. Listeners and viewers, we appreciate your patience as well. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. We'll catch
