The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week

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14th June 2024

The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week

If you’re a recruiter, the following scenario may sound familiar: You’re wrapping up a meeting with a hiring manager about an open req and you’re feeling good. Timelines, expectations, and next steps are clear. You’re ready to get to work.

But then the hiring manager adds one last thought: “More than anything,” they say, “I just want someone who the team can get along with.”

Your heart sinks. This sounds an awful lot like the dreaded “beer test” — that red flag of an idea where a hiring manager believes the best teams are made up of employees who they’d feel comfortable having a beer with.

“The beer test,” writes Johnny Campbell, industry leader and CEO of SocialTalent, in a recent edition of his newsletter, “is a funny, and oddly enduring, hiring criteria that seems to persist no matter how far we push the needle on inclusive hiring. It’s trying to capture the essence of something that, on one hand, is correct, but packages it up in a way that is completely inconducive to making a great hire.”

To learn more about how to untangle the often good intentions behind the beer test with truly making that great hire, be sure to check out Johnny’s newsletter at the top of our list below of must-read articles for talent professionals. One of the key takeaways? “Just saying that this biased attitude is wrong and moving on isn’t enough,” Johnny writes.

And further down our list, you can also learn how a rise in AI adoption is starting to see increased return on investment; why a hybrid work model may have more benefits than a full return-to-office approach; and why some learners — in potentially troubling news — may not notice the difference between an AI avatar and an actual human instructor.