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You might be thinking, “TED Talks are so 10 years ago.” Or maybe you still consume them like popcorn. Regardless, if you’re a recruiter (or anyone involved in hiring), there are some TED Talks that you simply need to watch.

From opening the aperture on who is a great applicant to selling candidates on a job, these nine short talks are packed with information that can help you become more effective at finding and hiring top-notch talent. Without further ado, they are:

1. The case for a four-day workweek — Juliet Schor

On the surface, the four-day workweek sounds like a dream for employees — and a nightmare for employers. But the reality, says Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College, is quite compelling. For everyone.

In response to the stress, anxiety, and burnout brought on by the pandemic, Juliet says, a growing number of organizations are offering a four-day, 32-hour workweek with five days of pay. “Sounds pretty good,” Juliet says, “but is it realistic? Well, actually, yes.”

“[T]he research,” Juliet says, “shows that people are less stressed, value their jobs more, and have better lives outside of work. In most cases, they  are as productive in four days as they are in five.” She says the 32-hour week also lowers attrition and, take note recruiters, raises the quality of the applicant pool. 

“The secret sauce,” Juliet says, “is work reorganization.” This, she notes, is a reduction sauce, and the main ingredient is fewer meetings. 

“Yes,” she says to the audience, “I see everyone nodding.”

2. Why the best hire might not have the perfect resume — Regina Hartley 

You’ve read a bazillion resumes, and you probably have a pretty good idea of what you’re looking for. This TED Talk may challenge that. According to Regina Hartley, the vice president of global talent management at UPS, a good recruiter knows how to read a resume, but a great one takes it with a grain of salt, reading between the lines.

Separating candidates into “silver spoons” given every advantage in life and “scrappers” who fought their way in, she encourages recruiters to not underestimate candidates with less-than-perfect resumes.

Regina notes: “A series of odd jobs may indicate inconsistency, lack of focus, unpredictability. Or it may signal a committed struggle against obstacles.” And it’s that committed struggle, that ability to overcome, that may hint at a candidate’s future success in your company.

To make her point, Regina asks listeners to consider this one resume in particular. “He never finishes college. He job-hops quite a bit, goes on a sojourn to India for a year, and to top it off, he has dyslexia. Would you hire this guy? His name is Steve Jobs.”

Next time you’re comparing resumes, you might want to reward resilience, persistence, and scrappiness over paint-by-numbers perfection.

3. 10 ways to have a better conversation — Celeste Headlee

“Is there any 21st-century skill more important than being able to sustain coherent, confident conversation?” asks Celeste Headlee, a radio host and professional interviewer. Obviously, the art of conversation is an especially important skill for recruiters, and Celeste’s 10 tips to be a better conversationalist are easily applied to candidate interviews.

“Use open-ended questions,” she advises. “Take a cue from journalists. Start your questions with who, what, when, where, why, or how. If you put in a complicated question, you’re going to get a simple answer.”

Instead of peppering candidates with technical queries, ask them things like, What was that like? How did that feel? “Because then,” Celeste says, “they might have to stop for a moment and think about it, and you’re going to get a much more interesting response.” The simplest interview questions can be the most revealing.

4. How great leaders inspire action — Simon Sinek

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers may not have been recruiters. But they were supremely effective at getting people to join their cause — cause being the operative word here. According to Simon Sinek, that’s because they focused on the why.

While almost all companies can say what they do and how they do it, “very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do,” says Simon in a talk that has now had 58 million views. “And by why, I don’t mean ‘to make a profit.’ . . . I mean: What’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care?”

In recruiting, we call this a company’s sense of purpose. With a purpose-driven pitch, you can attract committed candidates who’ll go above and beyond because they believe. “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money,” Simon says, “but if they believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.”

Instead of focusing on what your company does, what a role entails, or how a candidate will succeed with you, speak to the job’s higher purpose.

5. What makes us feel good about our work? —  Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely paid a few people to create something with Legos — and then had them watch as he destroyed the creations they were so proud of. He then asked if they wanted to be paid to build another. Spoiler alert: They did not.

As a recruiter, you want to make sure your organization is an attractive option for potential candidates. And, as demonstrated by Dan’s experiment, that takes more than just a nice paycheck.

In his TED Talk, Dan emphasizes the importance of attaching meaning to work. The de facto and tactical complement to Simon’s talk, Dan believes it’s critical to “spend some time, energy, and effort in getting people to care more about what they’re doing.” Instead of focusing on money, we need to pay more attention to meaning.

Recruiters can play a pivotal role in helping candidates and current employees find meaning in their work. Let candidates know how their role fits into the bigger picture of the company. Emphasize opportunities to work on interesting and challenging projects. Promote what makes you stand out from other companies, including your office culture, education opportunities, and other perks.

6. Why we hire ‘unemployable’ people — Mike Brady and Dion Drew

Talent comes in all sorts of flavors.

Mike Brady, then the CEO of Greyston Bakery, opens his talk by outlining his company’s very different approach to finding talent: “With my team of former convicts, addicts, immigrants, and the chronically unemployed, we make world-class products that we ship around the globe.” Among other things, Greyston’s brownies are a key ingredient in Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Half-Baked ice cream flavors.

So, what is the dark secret to Greyston’s improbable success with talent that few others will hire? “We do it,” Mike says, “by hiring anyone who comes to the front door of the bakery.” 

Your company may not be quite ready to do just that, but Mike’s talk makes a compelling case for widening the aperture of your talent searches — it’s good for the community and, given how tough it is to find talent these days, it’s good for the business.

Mike points out that 46 million people in the United States were living in poverty at the time of his talk. “We need to have our business managers try to understand what these other obstacles are,” he says, “these obstacles that are preventing good people from becoming thriving members of our society.” 

Dion Drew, a former drug dealer and convict who is now a supervisor at the bakery, takes the mic from Mike and shares his story about how Greyston helped him turn his life around. 

7. How to reduce bias in your workplace — Kim Scott and Trier Bryant

Trier Bryant and Kim Scott are the cofounders of Just Work, a company whose name is a sly play on their focus: Helping organizations build more equitable and inclusive workplaces. One of the things they do is help companies address bias, particularly unconscious bias.

As much as we may hate to admit it, bias is unavoidable. It’s hard-wired into our brains. “[Biases] come from the part of our mind,” Kim says, “that jumps to conclusions we might not even be aware of.” Trier notes how many people have mistaken her for a receptionist at the business for which she is actually an executive. Yes, bias is everywhere.

In their six-minute TED Talk, Trier and Kim suggest a three-step process to disrupt bias: Create a shared vocabulary for calling bias out; develop norms for how to respond when it is called out; and commit to identifying bias at least once in every meeting.

When your organization starts nipping bias in the bud, your culture will become more inclusive and so will your recruiting and hiring processes.

8. Grit: The power of passion and perseverance — Angela Duckworth

A quality hire is the Holy Grail of recruiting. So, what’s the single best predictor of success for a candidate? Alma mater? Previous company or role? IQ? Instagram followers?

According to MacArthur Fellow and best-selling author Angela Duckworth, it’s none of those things. Angela’s research into this topic has included visits with cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, teachers in tough school districts, and finalists in the National Spelling Bee. 

“In all those very different contexts,” Angela tells her TED viewers (who now number 26 million), “one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. . . . It was grit.”

To unearth those who possess grit, recruiters should consider asking candidates about their failures, about their outside pursuits, about what they’ve done when the pressure was the highest. And then sell them on the growth opportunities your role presents.

9. How we can use the hiring process to bring out the best in people — Gil Winch

How would you characterize a job interview? A conversation? A dance? A seduction, perhaps? 

Gil Winch calls it “a one-sided, high-pressure interrogation.” He says that most job interviews obscure candidate potential and cause companies to overlook people who would be great employees. When Gil founded CY, an Israeli outsourced call center, he hired what he calls “underdogs,” more than half of whom have severe disabilities. To build his unconventional staff, he developed an unconventional “reverse screening process,” which is designed to show candidates off at their best rather than their stressed-out worst.

The CY process, Gil says, aims to lower anxiety, lose the interrogation vibe, and present interviewers as friendly and welcoming hosts. The company’s interview room looks like a living room and the CY hiring teams kick off conversations with candidates by asking them about . . . their hobbies.

“By finding and hiring those you might otherwise overlook,” Gil says, “you will not only benefit your own company, you will literally transform people’s lives. The opportunity to win with underdogs is all around you.”

*Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

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