You’re interested in scrapping the CV, hiring for potential, and rolling out a skills based hiring approach beyond early careers. But you’re TERRIFIED about how to actually do it. 

Maybe you’ve done pretty much everything you can think of to improve the diversity of your talent pool and you’re moving the needle, but it’s not happening FAST enough.

Or maybe you’re just curious about how one of the most pioneering TA leaders our industry has to offer has managed to achieve a 75% female shortlist in a traditionally male-dominated industry? Is a shortlist so good, he could have hired 50% of it? And got hiring managers coming to him asking if they could roll out CV-less hiring rather than resisting it?

Well, you’ve come to the right place.

This week, Robert is speaking to Joe Sidley –– Head of Talent Acquisition for EMEA and APAC at Molson Coors –– who is sharing his lessons learned on how…

🌱 To move from using skills-based hiring only for Early Careers to delivering a wider scale pilot and rollout for more experienced hires, how to establish which roles CV-less hiring is relevant for, and how to adapt your process for different roles 

🙌 To ease hiring manager fears, help them embrace CV-less hiring, and convince them to put their faith in something other than the document they’ve been relying on for over 150 years 

🔮 To collaborate effectively with both DEI attraction partners to L&D set yourself up for success from attraction to onboarding to ongoing development 

🌊 To create a ripple effect –– so you can hit improvement metrics just like Joe did, and have people stopping you in the corridor to ask how you made a transformational change and how they can get involved 

Listen below 👇

Podcast Transcript:

Robert: Welcome to the TA Disruptors podcast. I'm Robert Newry, CEO and co-founder of Arctic Shores, the task-based psychometric assessment company that helps organisations uncover potential and see more in people.

We live in a time of great change and TA disruptors who survive and thrive will be the ones who learn to adapt and iterate and to help them on that journey. In this podcast, I am speaking with some of the best thought leaders and pioneers who are leading that change.

And so I'm especially excited to welcome today, Joe Sidley, head of talent acquisition, EMEA and APAC for the brewing company Moulson Cause, and somebody who has been an early pioneer and adopter of my scrap, the CV philosophy. So Joe, welcome, thrilled to have you on the podcast. 

I know that you're somebody who's really passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. But please start off by sharing with us, you know, what brought you, I suppose, first to Arctic Shores, but also why you suddenly threw yourself into the world of scrapping the CV and everything that that then requires. 

Joe: Yeah, thank you, Robert, and thanks for having me today. So what brought us first to Arctic Shores was that we wanted to reduce some of the bias for our early careers hiring. So grads and apprentices, you know, we were expecting a huge volume of applications. We wanted to, you know, open up opportunities for that early career talent and as I say, reduce the bias. So that's what brought us originally to the application. 

And it worked really well. And how did it work well? Just in terms of, you know, the feedback from candidates on the assessment, the results of the people that we hired and how well they've done in the business over the last couple of years. And I think it's a really important point is that essentially we related our scrapping the CV, pilots and processes and trials to the success of the early careers program. So we were essentially doing, you know, CV-less hiring with our early careers. So it wasn't a huge leap essentially for our hiring managers and our senior leadership around, do we take it that next level further and apply it to experienced higher recruitment? 

Robert: So psychologically, that was really important for the teams. And I just, just on that point, because I think that's so important here for many people that we live in a skills crisis at the moment and people are wondering how to solve it. And yet we've got this incredible capability in early careers, which we've always had of hiring for potential, but nobody's really made the connection between, Oh, we've got a great capability about hiring potential. Why don't we try it out in other parts of the business? So how did that come about for you? What did you happen to look after both areas then? Is that why you were able to make that connection? 

Joe: Yeah, I think we see it. I think that's exactly it. I think, you know, The amazing team I lead at Molson Coors, we've got a huge remit. It's the BAU hiring, it's employer brand, it's leading on our diversity, equity, and inclusion journey and early careers. And then we, I guess, we've done loads of things from a D&I perspective in TA at Molson Coors. The business is on a huge DE&I journey because quite simply, we need to get more underrepresented groups in our organization. That's the crux of it. Like a lot of our competitors, it's an industry-wide problem. 

Robert: Well, not just an industry-wide, it's a country-wide challenge in many cases. 

Joe: Absolutely. So the challenge that the business has is obviously that underrepresented group piece. And we were kind of, we tried loads of things. Okay, so we'd refresh the employer brand as a TA team. We had done blind CVs, it's all over a couple of years. We'd done higher magic capability, D&I training, the whole piece we'd gone through. And yeah, we were moving the dial, but it wasn't quite radical enough for us. We wanted to be a bit more progressive and try something new.

Robert: And just on that, when you said you were moving the dial on that one, because I hear this a lot of the times. I don't know if you're able to share any stats on this, but one of the engineering companies we used to work with, similar kind of background to this, had got 20% female representation. I know there are many different areas around diversity, equity, inclusion that we need to improve, but they moved it from 20% to 24%, but what they needed to obviously was get it to 50%.  And is that the kind of, so the dial was moving in sort of percentage points. 

Joe: It was exactly. 

Robert: But not in a, it wasn't representing the country at the end of the day or population. Yeah, that's exactly it. 

Joe: We were moving the dial. You know, another thing we did, we had an inclusive hiring toolkit and it just wasn't moving fast enough for us. And as an organization to be successful, we have to move quickly, we have to innovate. And then we were, you know, I think what kind of keeps me thinking in the morning when I'm in the shower and things like that is how do we move that title? What more can we do? And then we'd looked at the success of our early careers program. We'd looked at the diversity of that population coming in. And we thought, okay, how can we apply something similar to certain experienced higher roles? And that was the crux of it.

And the comms that Arctic Shores did around for potential, scrapping the CV. It just joined the dots for us in terms of, let's try this next, quite simply. 

Robert: So it's finding the right role then to go and pilot it. 

Joe: Yeah, I think the context is really important. I think it's finding the right role and finding the right leadership group in that function. And then finding the right context of the team to fundamentally put somebody in without experience that there needs to be a support network both formally with our L&D teams, but informally naturally with a team.

Robert: Yes, so finding that hiring manager must have been quite tricky because I don't assume anybody was running up to you saying, Joe, I'd love to scrap the CV, you're an expert on this, can you help me do it? They're probably running up to you saying, I've still got this role that's open, why haven't you filled it?

Joe: I think that's a really important point. I think at Molson Coors we don't struggle to recruit. If I'm really honest, we don't. We get lots of really good applications, great culture, great award, everything else. But I think who and how we recruit, that was the thing we needed to address. The hiring manager community at Molson Coors, they want to innovate themselves. They want to affect change. They are completely on board of our DEI journey collectively because of the great work, the leadership team, the L&D’'s that are in that space. So it was a receptive audience, of course, but there were bound to be pockets of scepticism, let's say, because these are successful teams that are joining and there was a bit of a, okay, if you're gonna join this team, then that earn your stripes mentality professionally. 

But tying in with early careers, tying in with the D&I journey that we're on, the education piece using your psychology team really helped, but also I think, let's not forget that you're gonna get better talent for doing this. You need outstanding talent that can progress in the organization. I think it's making sure that you're aware of what levers you need to pull to influence that hiring community. So for this particular trial that we run, it was different levels or different pulls of those levers for each of the different hiring managers. 

Robert: Right, and it was, if I remember correctly, a sales type of role. Yeah. And so you found a hiring manager who was willing to try something new, but it still must have been quite a mind shift for them. How did you get round that… don't look at the CV and trust us, trust us in TA because we are going to give you a great candidate even though we're doing things completely differently from what you're used to.

Joe: Yeah, it takes me back because when you're changing a process that's been in situ for 150 or so years and you're saying, okay, let's remove that comfort blanket, let's remove that crutch, and then let's think about something new. You're right, there was a huge journey we went on to. And I think it just, I think what really helped was we started the process by educating the leaders of that particular function.

And they came back with some tough questions, as they would do. But it was always a case of, this is a trial. These are things we gotta do. It's not a huge leap psychologically, based on our early career success. Give us the opportunity. And we kind of went into it maybe a little bit flippantly thinking what's the worst that could happen? What is the actual worst that can happen with this? It's a trial. So lots of education, as I said, the team at Arctic Shores were amazing, supporting us with those conversations, how we positioned it was an experienced team they were joining. Our L&D team at Molson Coors are incredible, so we knew we had these kind of risk mitigators in place.

I don't think we're gonna happen, but we had those things in place. But look, education, lots of it, lots of calls, one-on-one group sessions. And then I think as well, and I think it's a really important point is, educate the actual TA team on it as well, because this was kind of me driving it, me working with you and your teams, this is the idea of what we want to do. But to educate my team, because they've been conditioned for years to take a brief. Go to market, look for that experience, and then move the process forward. So loads of different dynamics at play with the education piece. 

Robert: Fascinating, and I think that's such good advice around all this, and it seems quite a lot of work up front to get all this buying and this education. But like a lot of things in life, Joe, if you put the upfront work in, then actually you're more likely to see success. And I think your point about what's the worst that could happen, because so many times people kind of say to me, I couldn't possibly scrap the CV, Robert. I'll end up with the great unwashed of indeed and CV library applying for my role. I have no way of being able to distinguish them and life will be a total mess.

And actually, that's not really the case at all. And if you think about it and plan for it properly, which you clearly did, actually that probably helps you not just in the education, but it helps you dealing with some of the answers too, because you are gonna get challenging answers, you know, challenging questions. Quite often I get asked, are you saying that experience doesn't count? So you probably had some of those type of questions about, surely at some point I need to look at, you know, what they've done in the past. 

Joe: I think I had every question. that you could possibly thought of. I think, do you know what else I think is that the one absolute truth of the agreement is we're all gonna make hiring mistakes. You know, I've made them, you've made them, like every single organization does. So look, we all make hiring mistakes, that's the absolute truth. So let's keep that in mind as well. But in terms of those questions, it was everything you could possibly imagine. But again, we came back to that. This is a trial. This is what we want to do. Let's work it through and then let's see the results. But yeah, let's do it properly, methodically, and yeah, let's start the pros and see how we get on. 

Robert: Fascinating. And what were the results then? So can you share? Yeah, I can, absolutely. You kind of set the scene here. You know, obviously I have the benefit of hindsight in this and knowing that it was a success, but you probably didn't know it was going to be, so…what did you learn as you went through it all? 

Joe: You think and feel it's going to be a six months, but there's always that kind of little voice in the back of your head thinking, you know. So I think what started the process really well was how we linked the hiring for potential opportunity, the actual job itself, with our diversity partners.

So that's a really important point was, we publicize this with a number of our diversity partners that we use. And that's- It's like, such as you got some examples of that. Bridge of Hope careers, working moms, working dads, to name but a few. So here's a really authentic opportunity with that particular community to say, look, we're Molson and Coors, we're on a journey. Here's a role where you don't need anything to apply, aside from right to work and be there or thereabouts in the right location.

That sends a huge message in front of that population that look, these people aren't playing at it. They're quite serious about it. So that was really important. But in terms of those results, some of the kind of basic metrics, double the amount of applications straight away.

Robert: Which is a good thing. It shows that the message is getting out there rather than some people worry about, oh, you know, that's more work.

Joe: And I think as well context going to keep coming back to in a really tough area to recruit. For the TA people listening in, it was a kind of home counties, Cambridgeshire type area, which is very, very challenging. And then as we went through the process, we did the Arctic Shores assessment, we configured the assessment, and the fit for the role. And then we had 75% female representation at the interview stage. Which is unheard of for that role. 

Robert: And this is now without making any positive adjustment, just saying anybody could apply. 

Joe: Yeah, exactly that. And I think as well, the female representation score better on the Arctic Shores assessment as well. So we had those data points to bring it through. And then we went through the hiring process, the interview process. And we probably could have hired half of the people we saw.

Robert: So it was that good?

Joe: Yeah, it was, it was. And that, again, it comes back to that point, you kind of think this is gonna happen. Yes. But I think when we saw the results itself, they were incredible. And then you go on to the next piece. So we have people in reserve, which is amazing. Yep. And then it's about how does the person actually do in the role.

Robert: Well, that's right, that's the big thing.

Joe: That's the crux, isn't it?

Robert: Yes, it is.

Joe: All up until now is amazing, but are they gonna go out and perform one of the role? And all the data today is saying the person is absolutely performing in the position. So sales metrics, learning the role, team dynamics. Recently, one of our kind of sales coaches went out this individual and said it was the best day in trade they'd ever had with one of our kind of sales representatives and getting that kind of feedback and, you know, those data points on performance, suddenly everyone's talking about it.

And suddenly I'm not going to the meeting saying, hiring for potential, scrapping CVs, skills-based hiring. They're coming to me and saying, Joe, can I go and do what so-and-so's done? I want some of that across my areas. And I think that's where right now is how do we, you know, standardize it as an entry point into our organization, to really change the makeup of our organization.

Robert: I'd like to come back to that as to how you then roll that out, but just before we do that, I'm sure there's some people listening who'd be a little bit sceptical going, ah yes, but Joe hasn't told me the background of this individual and they probably have a sales background, they might have sneakily, you know, come in from you know, a similar industry.

Joe: It's one of our competitors, no it wasn't, just for the record actually, it wasn't. No, I think the best way to describe it is that CV would never have come past my team. A background in kind of sewage treatments and a few other kind of sectors that aren't relevant, you know, no real, well, no sales experience, starting point, which is something that we look for. And it just comes back to that point where If we can create the opportunity, you know, we can figure the behaviours we're looking for, we get the assessment right, then we can bring these people through into our organization to have amazing careers.

Robert: Absolutely, and it just shows you what great talent that's out there that we're not tapping into. Absolutely. Just because we're sort of blinkered with this, well, they've got to have experience either in the sector or they've got to have experience in the role, and what you've just proven is actually what they really need is the sort of things we call soft skills, and it's their aptitude and attitude almost to how they want to learn and how they interact with people that's gonna make them successful in the role, because you can train the skills that they're going to need.

So, fantastic, thank you for showing that. And it seems incredible that people can go from sewage and completely non-brewing related sectors to then come into your type of organisation and be hugely successful. I think that should be really encouraging, both to your leaders and obviously for candidates as well. And now, so tell us how you're gonna expand that out. So you've got a pilot in, you've shown success, there'll still be some people that are no doubt are going, oh yeah, but it's like playing golf. You've had one good shot, Joe, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone's gonna be good.

Joe: I'll take it a little further, it's sales, Joe. Yes. Oh, you know, people always kind of fall into sales, don't they? So this is some of the things that we're thinking about. So now we have trials across other areas of our business. So in supply chain and manufacturing, we've got some trials about to start at our largest and the most advanced brewery in Europe, which is state of the art brewing facility, the largest brewery in our portfolio. And then we're doing it in our technical services area for what we call kind of technical representatives, and we're looking at additional trials in logistics. So across the whole range of our organization, we're piloting different trials this year, and some are happening right now, to give this process another try, another go.

Robert: Is it hard, because when you've got one pilot and you've done a huge amount of education around that, then you're in control of it a bit. Whereas now you're starting to push out a bit. Is it getting harder to keep that consistency in and people kind of sneaking in CVs when Joe's not looking or your team are not looking to try and sort of bypass maybe water down the approach? 

Joe: I think we haven't had that yet. And I think it's because we've got the framework that Arctic Shores supported us with. So there's a really clear framework of how you go to market and what the process is. I think… if you've got the framework and you stick to the framework, you can reduce that kind of creep, I guess for want of a better word.

And I think as well that there is a piece that we're still not ruling people out. We're not saying that if you've got experience in XYZ job, you still can't apply for this role. But the key is we're ruling people in that wouldn't necessarily apply. And it comes back to how we go to market, how we promote the roles linking in with those diversity partners, which are doing for all these different positions. And also I think for some, I think I'm really excited about the supply chain trials because there is an education and awareness piece of what working in modern manufacturing is like, which I happen to do.  So there's the education, the branding piece, then the hiring for potential scrap and CVs, and then let's look at the results as they come through.

Robert: Yes, and I assume just based on what you're saying, you're having to work quite closely with your L&D team. I mean, you said earlier that they're fantastic, but they have to be bought into this too, because there's the, and I don't know whether you've got any advice on that one, is because one of the things that holds people back on this is, well, if I'm gonna hire for potential, that's all very well and good, but actually that's gonna take six months, nine months, 12 months to do it, and I can't afford to wait. So if you have L&D, involved in this, is that A, making it easier for the manager, two, or is it as long as people think? What can you share and what you've learned from post, you know, once they join?

Joe: I think first of all, don't be scared about the speed with which these people will learn who join the business. Yes. You're recruiting high potential talent who naturally… learn quite quickly if your assessment process is robust. So they're gonna learn quickly, they're gonna get the lay of the land pretty quickly. I think getting L and D on board at the start is super important. You're gonna need them. Absolutely. But I think as well, people learn in different ways. So it comes back to that education point is that people may learn more from their teammates than a formal L and D type situation. So I guess getting people educated on the process, what to expect, what not to expect, around all the touch points that person has when they join your organization. But absolutely, Ellen, you're an important part of it.

Robert: Yes, yes. And I think that's, you know, that for me, I've always said that it's two halves of the same coin on this one, you can half a potential, but then you've got to develop for potential too. Yeah. One of the things that you and I last year had a little bit of a giggle about, was when we went publicly about this. Share with us that actually we can laugh about it afterwards but I remember you saying to me, oh Robert, I'm just about to put a very quiet press release and I'm not sure whether A, a brewing company can ever put a quiet press release out there or B, that when you do that you hadn't realised the spotlight, the power I suppose that a big brewing company has on the psyche of the British nation?

Joe: Yeah, it was a, I describe it as a wild time, Robert. I think it's probably the best way. It was probably the biggest employer brand initiative we've had at Molson Core since we launched LiveLeaf a couple of years prior to that. We did the release because again, it just links into our D&I journey and how we want to educate people and what we're trying to do. And then, everyone picked up on it, didn't they, if you recall? Times, Sun, Telegraph, HR magazines. BBC, I think, wasn't it? BBC, yeah, the HRD was on the Radio 4 program. It surprised me, personally, and the team. It didn't surprise our corporate affairs team, obviously. They were pretty clear. There was a commentary piece in the Times. And look, not all of it was positive. Broadly, it was. I think you and I both agree that some missed the point.

One organization went through every single one of our job postings and looked at which ones require a CV and experience, they reported on that. So they obviously missed the points about the trial. About the trial, yes. But I think interestingly, I think it created a halo around our employer brand that there's an organisation out there that's viewed, you know, let's we're viewed as a traditional manufacturing organisation, which is far from the case. They're trying something new, trying to appeal to those groups that wouldn't necessarily get into those similar sorts of organizations, trying to effect change.

 So it was amazing. It was amazing to get that publicity. But also our people saw the stories. So again, that wider education piece across the business. And then customers were talking to us about it, and obviously consumers were as well. So as a kind of education piece, even though some of those articles or pieces did miss the point a little bit, it was great from a publicity perspective and kind of reflects our kind of people first value at Molson Coors in terms of what we're trying to do.

Robert: It does and I love that people first piece and I know that's your hashtag when you're posting something and I think it's a great way of emphasizing that this is your direction around all of this. And I think it's brilliant when companies are willing to raise their head above the parapet and do something a bit different.

Because this is hard, and the moment that you shove your head, and I had it when I first started the campaign of Scrap the CV, everybody said I was completely mad, CV's been around forever, a lot of people were accusing me of saying experience doesn't count, and you have to spend a lot of time explaining to people what the point about this is. You're not saying that experience doesn't count. What you are doing is giving opportunity. And I think probably like all of these things, you enjoy the publicity, but it comes sometimes with a little bit of a tinge of- Yeah, that's exactly it. How somebody sees things, isn't it?

Joe: Yeah, that's exactly it. Look, it was a great, it was an interesting few weeks. It raised the profile of the organization and what we're trying to do. But look, I'm also calling, we don't want to do things in a tinsely kind of way. We want to do things properly. We want to make a difference with our people and with our communities. So let's do things properly. And do things with that people first value at the forefront of everything we're doing, not because it's kind of a new quirky, innovative thing. It's just not authentic. It's not our culture.

Robert: And that's a great piece of advice, Joe, on this. And I think you're spot on on this, that this is not something that just to be going as, oh, this is a little bit of fun, let's just try this out. You really have to think about it. One of the things that I think is so interesting about how we make all of this happen is just coming back to the job description and the way that we have to look at that, because… one of the reasons why I started the Scrap the CV campaign was because I felt that it wasn't just, the CV was really just a product of the way that we looked at our roles. 

And so having sort of gone through this pilot, what have you learned and what advice would you give people about the roles where this would be suitable for hiring for potential and where it wouldn't. Because early careers, it's nice and easy. Every role is gonna be trained. But here, I mean, National Grid, for example, last week said there is no role in National Grid that we cannot train somebody to acquire the skills for. Is that true at Molson Coors too or there are some things you think that's gonna work?

Joe: I don't think we're in that space yet, Rob. I think it's really important to be honest. I think there are large collections of roles in our organization that, yeah, we can train. But I don't think, yeah, it comes back to education piece and embedding piece. I think we're not quite there yet. In terms of which roles we identified, that was that was quite a complex process actually. Um, well, I thought it was complex cause it's, you know, essentially what we're looking for is experienced higher roles.

The had that L and D, that more kind of formal L and D journey after start date. So that was already embedded in to the roles or something. We'd hire people into these roles while competitors and teach them how we do things at Morse and cause. And it was a case of like, what's the point? Yeah. Like, and so

Robert: You haven't really trained them anyway, you say. Essentially that. And there was, I guess, for want of a better phrase, kind of-

Joe: more junior experienced high roles was where we saw the main kind of value. So we'd look at a job profile, we'd strip it down to its absolute basics and then relate that job profile to the behaviours that an individual needs to undertake those duties.

Robert: And you were doing that with the hiring manager with you because I imagine they're coming to you with, oh look, I've got this vacancy now here's the job request and it's probably in the same format that it's always been. So you're having to rejig that a bit.

Joe: Yeah, having those conversations, doing the education, working with your teams, again, really important part of the process. And it's that reprogramming of people's minds and particularly hiring managers to try something new. You've got to start somewhere, haven't you? Yeah. Literally, you've got to start somewhere and just have a look at those jobs in your business. Yes. Have a look at them.

Robert: Because I do think that job description is so interesting because if we think the CV's been around for 150 years, the job description has followed it pretty well at the same path. And ultimately, I think the CV came out of the job description, it was okay. I need somebody with this experience to do this job. Oh, okay, well here is a document and a set of data points that shows I can do that.

Joe: And how many people do you speak to in work, out of work, friends, family, that say, well, I'm doing this, but it's not my job description. They're like a static concept that never changes.

Robert: Exactly, so, or how many people have, I had this lovely story the other day of, So it was for a telecoms company and he was the head of talent acquisition and they were talking about workforce planning and what they were going to need in the future. And one of the board of directors said, yeah, I think one of the things we really need to do is upgrade the quality of talent that we're bringing into the organisation and everybody should have a minimum 2-1 degree result.

And the, yeah exactly, the eyebrows of the head of T.A. there sort of shot up and said, okay, I don't think that's necessarily the measure of quality here. And by the way, I don't have a degree, let alone a 2.1, so does that mean I'm no longer? And it was suddenly a sort of, oh no, I mean, I'm not in every case. And it just highlighted the ridiculousness of some of the mindsets we have that are based on, oh, we have this job description, and these were our kind of markers of quality, whether it be education result type of university you went to, whether you were a sports captain, and all sorts of other ridiculous things.

Joe: And there's a piece around it only assessing you at that particular time, isn't it? It's like, you know, you're getting assessed at 16, 18, then 18 to 20 watts. And then you define for the rest of your life by what's going on at that particular time or your development at that time It's just it's a nonsense.

Robert: Yes, it is. I love the work that you do with bridge of hope Yeah, because that's that's such a good example of not pigeonholing people based on what may or may not have happened to them in the past and either having good fortune or a bit of bad fortune and that shouldn't

to find you for the rest of your life.

Joe: No, it shouldn't, it shouldn't. They're doing some really great work, they are, with those system-impacted people. But even though they're doing loads of great work, getting the opportunities for them is a struggle still. Hence the reason why if we can get the higher potential opportunities in front of those communities, then it just kind of makes it a bit more of an even sort of playing field for them. That's the kind of overarching ambition for them and for us with our partnership.

Robert: I think what's interesting around that too is that, you know, part of what you've established by doing the pilot, and we've seen it with others too, Siemens being another example, is you, you know, having done all this sort of bias training and all these other things, by doing this pilot and showing what the results were, is that you've now got credibility.

You know, it's not just, oh, you know, training and kind of pushing out to them that they've got to change. And everybody's going, well, okay, well, what did TA know? Whereas now you said, no, I can show you that if you experiment with this kind of thing, it does work, but you have to trust me. And I've got the data, and you talked quite a lot about the data points, didn't you, about how that works?

Joe: Yeah, I think, you have to have the data because everyone wants to see the data Robert, don't they? They do, they do. They saw one and good me coming and talking about some of the things, but they wanna see the data, they wanna see the metrics, they wanna, we did a really interesting piece around a kind of before and after type case study.

So this is the data you'd have if you did it normally, and this is the data with the hiring for potential trial. And there was a huge shift in the metrics particularly around gender representation that we've spoken about. But then, yeah, you have to have those data points to tell the story because you need that credibility to expand it further, which is what we're doing at the moment.

Robert: And have you found, you know, as you're looking, I suppose as you're rolling this out and you're talking about, you know, you've got logistics, you've got supply chain, you've got some technical ones in there. So is the formula to some extent now of, okay, here's a role where I know that I've got good training for, where actually if somebody's got two to five years exposure rather than experience, but exposure to the workplace. And then actually the skills that we're looking for is much more about can they learn?

Can they, whatever it might be actually, because it'll be different per role in there, but the driver of success is more skills, soft skills based than it is hard skills based. Is that how you're looking? Absolutely that. It's the skills and behaviours piece. And the more challenging thing is the learning aspect, how quickly or how well do they learn? Because it comes back to my earlier point, we want to recruit in high potential talent. 

Joe: So we want to recruit these people in so they then progress through the organization. That's a really important part, you know, the whole concept. And then if you combine these groups coming in in traditionally experienced higher roles with early careers talent as well, then that's how you're kind of strategically impacted the organization from a TA perspective. And that's what's really exciting and that's what gets me out of bed in the morning not just filling roles, because let's be honest, everyone can fill roles, you know? And that's what motivates the team as well. Because I think, particularly for us at Molson Coors and particularly the HR and TA teams is, you know, we want to do something with a purpose.

You know, as I said, people can go out and fill roles. It's not that hard, hard a process, let's be really honest. But how can you impact the makeup of an organization? How can you support underrepresented groups? How can you do good in your day-to-day job? That, for me, is what it's all about, essentially.

Robert: Yeah, I know, I think it's a wonderful way, as we talked about earlier, about motivating you to go and make change, because you've got to be passionate about that purpose of why you're doing something because life is full of ups and downs, and what gets you through the downs is knowing that you're doing something that's going to have an impact on that. How, just as another area of perhaps impact, are you going through a programme of digitisation? Is GenAI going to change the type of skills, I assume it's gonna change how manufacturing to some extent being done?

Joe: Yeah, it's gonna, yeah, it will fundamentally change how we do things. I think from a TA perspective, it's a really interesting time at the moment. There's a real mix of views and responses and approaches out there from bury your head in the sand, it won't apply to us till the robots are coming, basically, everything in between. I think, look, as a TA team, we're keenly aware of it. Are we at the point yet of advising candidates on it? Not yet, but I think we will. We won't have a blanket do not use it approach. We will be a, this is the way you can use it.

We are changing our assessment methodologies to reflect the use of GenAI. Doing the education piece as well, again, that education piece is really important. Education piece both internally and externally. Because there is a piece, if you bring it down to a really basic level, is that if you're getting really well thought out CV, and then you're asking them as an example to do,

numeric reasoning, verbal reasoning, whatever it might be. And then, you know, how they show up based on, you know, the gen AI they're using for that process. Then is it an accurate representation? You know, is it a robust assessment process anymore? These are the questions that we're just working through at the moment. We are seeing an uptake in applications.

Robert: And some of that you think will be AI tool generated?

Joe: I think, yeah, I think it would be. You know, I think, you know, if I was… You know, if I was kind of sort of 20, 21, and these tools are available to me, then would I use them to help me get a job?  Yeah, of course I would. Of course, yes. For some people, if you're dyslexic or dyspraxia, it's a lovely aid to help you write a better application. Exactly. So I think we need to be mindful. There's loads more work for us to do on it. Is it having an impact? Yes, I think it is already. I still think there's more education out there, as I said, internally and externally, to do on it, but it's here and we have to work alongside it as there's our kind of approach.

Robert: Yeah, no, I think very, very sensible sort of outlook on it. I mean, I've been quite vociferous on that it's there. It's like a calculator and there's no point trying to ban its use any more than education has tried to do that and look, you know, where the universities and schools have ended up, you just had to accept it's there like a calculator and work how you build that into your processes rather than pretending it's not there. And I think particularly one of the things that, because we do see people from lower, we did a survey on this lower socioeconomic status groups using chat GPT as a tool, as an aid, because it levels the playing field. And in which case then we just need to be clear on our career sites, saying, actually, we know the tool is out there. For some people, it's a big aid. This is what good looks like if you're using it, and this is what bad looks like, because I hear lots of examples where people literally are just copying what came out of ChatGPT and dumping it into their application form, and it's bad, and it's no good for them, and it's no good for the recruiter who's having to review it as well. So there is, as you say, there's an important education that has to be done.

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. Both ways on that. And we're on that journey now, which is really important.

Robert: Yeah, another element to the job description for TA that's appeared, but then I suppose, you know, it's like you're learning new skills all the time on this one, and so we've, you know, it's true for everyone, we have to refresh our skills.

Joe: I do think as well, Robert, there's a point around TA is the fastest moving part of HR. And I say this to the HR leaders at Molson cause, but it is, it moves quicker than any other dynamic of HR. And I think the best TA teams, the best TA, the best recruiters adapt to that. And that's a really important point. It's fast moving, you've got to adapt, everything's changing. I mean, even in the last 12 months, you think the changes that have happened, particularly with GenAI, have been phenomenal. And if you're not adapting, then you're not gonna be successful.

Robert: I think it's. Great advice, Joe, and just as a couple of final tips, how do people keep on top of all this change? One, and then secondly, if anybody was thinking of going down the piloting route, scrap the CV if you've got one piece of advice for them.

Joe: Yeah, I think in terms of keeping on top of change, I think a lot of it is about how you learn, how you educate yourself great resources coming out of Arctic Shores, I have to say. Really good stuff coming out there. I think you kind of networks in terms of what's happening and speak to people as well in your organization. You know, speak to your new hires. You know, there's what five or six generations of people out on the workforce. You know, how our early careers talent look and apply for jobs differs to, you know, every other kind of generation in that workforce. So you know, get that kind of experiential data from people you're bringing in, really important point, and we do make a point of doing that at Molson Coors. I think if you're doing hiring for potential trial or scrapping the CV, I think start with your why, that's the really important, why you're doing this.

I think educate stakeholders on the why and the process, and then be precise. I don't think you can do it on a huge large scale straight away. Be precise, be focused, invest the time in it. You'll get the data outputs and the experience to then potentially bring it on a larger scale. But yeah, be precise, will be my final sort of tip on that.

Robert: Wonderful, great advice. Thank you so much, Joe. You've just been brilliant and given some amazing insights, tips, thoughts for people who might be thinking about going down this journey and it's one that I think we both passionately believe that every organization has to be thinking about how they do this. We have to address the skills crisis, but also we have to address the inequality that we have in our society. So thank you so much for sharing all your thoughts on that. And as one final point on this, one of my favorite Cornish beers is Sharps. I know that's one of your brands.