Transcript
Mark:
Welcome to PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. I’m Mark Feffer.
Mark:
My guest today is Ty Abernethy, the co-founder and CEO of Grayscale, a developer of high volume recruiting solutions for industries like retail, delivery, e-commerce, and healthcare. Since the pandemic began, he’s seen some interesting shifts in the way both candidates and employers approach hiring and getting hired. We’re going to talk about that and other things going on in his swath of the labor market, on this edition of People Tech. Ty, it’s nice to see you, welcome. First, could you tell me about Grayscale? What makes you different?
Ty:
Yeah. Grayscale is a high volume hiring platform for enterprise organizations. We focus on making the hiring process frictionless for volume recruiting. So our approach is an SMS-first approach, we make it really easy to engage candidates via text message, and to automate a lot of the touch points throughout the hiring process, just to help those recruiters dealing in high volume to really create a frictionless process, and improved candidate experience, and really cut down on time to fill. So I think our differentiators are kind of how quickly we can be implemented by a team. It’s just kind of a, flip the switch, and we activate a lot of these capabilities inside of your ATS. Yeah, and just being able to kind of create a really consistent standardized candidate experience to really kind of help improve the overall experience for candidates.
Mark:
Okay. Now you were one of the founders of ConveyIQ, back in 2002. So here we are now, more than 10 years later, and you’re running a startup years later, and I’m curios, how has the environment for startups changed since your first go at?
Ty:
Yeah, and I may have misheard you, but it was at 2012 is when we started that business-
Mark:
Oh, 2012. Okay.
Ty:
So yeah, it’s been right about a decade. So as far as timeline, as far as how things have changed, it’s interesting, I feel like a decade ago, starting ConveyIQ, it was as if everything was an uphill battle, no on trusted at the time, it was like, “Oh, you’re a startup.” No one wanted to work with startups, even smaller businesses, it was kind of this thing where it’s like, “Oh, you’re not tested. You’re not a legit business.” I remember just having a lot of credibility issues early on. We were in the video interviewing space back in 2012, 2013, and just sort of the battles we had there of sort of convincing people that video was a legitimate channel in recruiting, it should be taken seriously.
Ty:
We kind of got lot of people that looked at us like we had the three heads, and were crazy back then. But yeah, I mean starting a business, we started Grayscale about four years ago, and it was of a similar shift, the first shift was going from video being sort of an off limits channel in the world of recruiting, to then it sort of becoming a prominent channel. Four years ago was kind of ushering in SMS is sort of a channel that was at one point off limits, that now is very commonplace, particularly for volume hiring. And so sort of some interesting similarities, but differences as well. I think now the world in general is much more open and receptive to working with earlier stage startups, especially kind of early on. Yeah, but it’s been an interesting decade or so being in the recruiting technology space.
Mark:
Yeah, just thinking, with all that’s going on today, I’ll bet it has. It feels like the high volume hiring space, which you’re focused on, it’s getting a lot more attention from both product developers, from investors, what do you think is driving all the interest?
Ty:
I think demand, for one. I think that it is harder than ever to be able to effectively staff up your organization, particularly at your high volume area in the business. The challenges in finding talents, getting them through your process fast enough in a very efficient way is real, and candidates will bounce the first little bit of friction they encounter in your process. And so I think it’s more important now than ever before to really focus on things like candidate experience, and really tightening up your time to fail as much as you possibly can, and just taking any sort of creative tactic you can to have an edge in this market. I think that’s one, and then two, I think just COVID has ushered in this technology adoption, it’s a really accelerated technology adoption, I would say.
Ty:
I think we were on this track pre-COVID, that companies were leaning more into leveraging technology to automating more of their process, those were trends that were happening pre-COVID. But they were happening at a relatively slow pace. What COVID did was really accelerate that, to where suddenly talent acquisition teams couldn’t afford to just throw more bodies at the problem, there was kind of a mandate from the top-down, it’s like, “We don’t have more budget, but we have to be more efficient, more effective with the folks we do have.” And more and more TA teams started really leaning into technology to help really transform what was possible with the team they had. And so we’ve seen that really accelerate things over the last year and a half, two years. So I think the combination of those two things have been pretty instrumental for driving up demand in this area.
Mark:
Do you think COVID has changed talent acquisition fundamentally? I mean, are some of the changes we’ve seen over the past couple of years because of COVID going to stay with us even once the pandemic’s gone?
Ty:
I don’t think it’s fundamentally changed talent acquisition. I do think it’s accelerated the trends that were already taking place. I think it just was rocket fuel for many of trends that were already happening. I mean, back to video as a channel in recruiting, by 2019, early 2020, people were very commonly doing video interviews in their process, that was sort of a thing. What happened post-COVID was, it just became the way you do things. And so I think these shifts have all been happening, they’re just being accelerated. And I think the pendulum will kind of swing back a little bit as far as what we’ll find is, same with work environments, we’ve gone from fully remote, we were fully in-person, to then fully remote, and now we’re kind of coming into the pendulum swinging back to this sort of blended, we’re in the office some, out of the remote some, is going to probably be where any companies land.
Ty:
And I think the same is going to be true for talent acquisition, the adoption of technology to do everything remote has kind of gone to one extreme, it’s going to kind of find a happy medium, I think. But again, I think the underlying trends are not going away as far as, like TA teams are now thinking, “How do we work smarter with technology to solve our problems?” Whereas, I don’t think that was not the predominant mindsets pre-COVID, especially with more established enterprise organizations.
Mark:
How about for candidates, especially in the high volume world? Have their expectations changed? The great resignation, the tight talent pool isn’t going to last forever, so have they changed? Have the candidates changed in fundamental ways?
Ty:
Again, I would say, in not in fundamental ways, but in market appropriate ways. The market oscillates back and forth between a candidate-driven market, and employer-driven market. We’re certainly in a candidate-driven market right now, and so you’re kind of seeing some pretty wonky things happen. I think inflation’s also making things a little bit more wacky right now as well, as far as just these lumpy pay rates, and it kind of being all over the place at the moment.
Ty:
But yeah, I think candidates know they’re in a candidate-driven market, they’re in high demand, and so they’re taking advantage of that, in many cases. And that’s just sort of the nature of the market we’re in, and the pendulum will swing back the other way, to more of an employer-driven market. And so I don’t think these trends are here to stay. I didn’t think what the good that it’s causing is, I think for the last decade, we’ve all been really keen to give lip service to candidate experience, but really, when the rubber meets the road, really not a whole lot’s been done, it’s kind of been this fluffy nice-to-have.
Ty:
I think now we’re kind of really seeing the impact of candidate experience. I don’t think that’s going to go away, I think companies investing in their employer brand, and overall candidate experience is… With just the edge they’re seeing, the ones that are doing it right, it’s a no-brainer that they’re going to double down on that. And so I think that is going to be something that will stay, regardless of how the market shifts in years ahead.
Mark:
I want to shift gears a little bit and ask you about Grayscale. What are you worrying about right now, either in the market, or the technology, or the business? What are the kind of things that keep you up at night about all that, and what are you doing about it?
Ty:
Yeah, well, I think for one is just, in growing a business, and Grayscale, I mentioned before, we’re about four years into this journey, so we’re kind of coming out of a season where we have been a small team, early stage, and now the team has been growing exponentially, and we work with a lot of Fortune companies, and are really… Yeah, things have evolved quite a bit in the last four years, and I think we’re kind of looking at our growth trajectory, and the market is really pulling us in a direction, and we want to keep up with that, while really preserving our culture, while really preserving, I think, the core values that we hold really dear here at Grayscale.
Ty:
And so it’s that sort of growth, and how do we move fast to sort of help meet the market need as we’re getting pulled in a certain direction, but also being really intentional and thoughtful about, how do we maintain a culture that is going to really sort of align with our values over time, and one that is going to deliver the best outcomes for our customers. And so again, we don’t believe in growth at all costs, and so trying to find that balance, riding that edge is, I think, just something that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately. Yeah, so I don’t know if that’s helpful, that’s what’s top of mind for me at the moment.
Mark:
Okay. Now, if you look the labor market in, say three to five years, specifically the labor market for hourly employees and such, do you see the dynamics changing? You touched on this a little bit a few minutes ago, talking about how candidate expectations had changed, and employers were going to strive to meet them, but what else do you think is going on with employees? How is their behavior changing in a way that you have to think about? Or are they going to pretty much stay the same as they are now?
Ty:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I can probably answer that coming from a few different directions. I think, one, just looking at things like compensation, is one kind of interesting thing that I think organizations of all size we’re kind of wrestling with right now, trying to pay competitive salaries, while understanding that now competitive salaries might be 20, 30, 40, 50% higher than what they’re paying someone else in that role currently today, and just the implications of that. And sort of whether it be Grayscale hiring an account executive, or Dick’s Sporting Goods hiring an hourly worker at one of their stores, there’s still underlying problems, are real. And I think those expectations that candidates bring with them, I think sometimes… It’s a really hard to kind of have your finger on the pulse of what’s market right now. Because market is so influxed at the moment. And so I think employers are really struggling with that, I know we are personally. I don’t know if that answers your question directly, but just something that’s certainly on top of mind for us.
Mark:
Okay. Well, Ty, thank you. It’s been great talking to you, and I appreciate you being here today.
Ty:
Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Enjoyed chatting with you, Mark, and thanks again.
Mark:
My guest today has been Ty Abernethy, co-founder and CEO of Grayscale. And this has been PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. We’re a publication of RecruitingDaily. We’re also a part of Evergreen Podcasts, to see all of their programs visit www.evergreenpodcasts.com. And to keep up with HR technology, visit the HCM Technology Report every day. We’re the most trusted source of news in the HR tech industry. Find us at www.hcmtechnologyreport.com. I’m Mark Feffer.
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