EP46: RTB House - Bridging Talent Shortages (With Frederic Bonifassy)

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

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Transcript

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Lydia: Welcome to the All In Recruitment Podcast by Manatal, where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for weekly episodes.

I’m Lydia, your host, and our guest is Frederic Bonifassy, the Head of Talent Acquisition for APAC at RTB House. He’s joining us from Singapore.

Welcome to the show, Frederic.

Frederic: Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to discuss [today’s topic] with you today.

From Sales and Marketing to Recruitment

Lydia: Absolute pleasure. So, tell us about your background and your current role at RTB House.

Frederic: Sure. I moved to Singapore in 2011, about 12 years ago. I had a sales and marketing background. And then, while looking for my first job, a boutique recruitment agency approached me and offered me a role as a recruiter.

I didn’t know much about recruitment before, so I learned on the job. Like many professionals before me, I didn’t choose recruitment. It chose me. After working a few years in the agency, I got an opportunity to go in-house and build a TA function in a tech startup company. And from there, I realized that recruitment was just a small part of the TA function and that’s how I fell in love with talent acquisition. Today at RTB House, I have a regional role to analyze our hiring performance metrics using data, to make hiring decisions, to partner with six country directors, and to design the best recruitment strategy for each of them while managing a team of five TA professionals and helping them to grow.

Lydia: That's interesting. So that's quite a scope from having started in the agency segment where you were so new to develop a whole department by yourself. What are some areas that you prioritized since taking on this role?

Frederic: So, the first thing I do is to make an audit to assess the situation. Before working at RTB House, I had previous experiences where during the first month of employment, I had to analyze what was working and what was not, understand the priorities of the leadership and the business leaders, and also check and hear from them what were the growth areas and the opportunities to improve our recruitment process.

So, just strong partnering with all these business leaders to prioritize my TA strategy. And then after that, I develop a roadmap, present it to the leadership, get their approval, and implement it.

Lydia: How long did it take in terms of a timeframe from planning to executing?

Frederic: Usually it takes a good two to three months [to complete.]

Hiring for Ad Tech and Martech: Challenges and Opportunities

Lydia: In this specific segment of ad tech and martech, have you noticed any skills gap in the ad tech or martech segment? And what are the top three criteria that you look for in a candidate?

Frederic: It can be really hard today to find professionals who have marketing or advertising experience, but also a tech background or vice versa. Having a mix of both is really the key to success, but not only that. I realized that today, it’s not enough. You really need these people to be business oriented.

A candidate really needs to understand the company mission, the company objectives, and the revenue goals that the company wants to achieve. Only then, this person will be able to add value and make a quick impact.

So, I really noticed that the biggest skills gap today is within paid social media advertising, everything related to the paid search advertising marketplace, SEO and SEM. Today, at RTB House, we use AI, machine learning, and deep learning. It’s really imperative that all these talents have a good understanding of these technologies on top of martech and ad tech background. And to answer your second question, my top three criteria are not necessarily hard skills.

It’s good to know how to do a job. But the most important thing for me is to hire based on the attitude. Someone who is curious, someone who is eager to learn, someone who has a lot of energy, and someone who’s not afraid of getting out of their comfort zone is really the top criteria for me to hire someone.

Lydia: So, you mentioned earlier that you cover six countries in this regional role. What might be some unique challenges to the diversity in these countries?

Frederic: It’s really challenging because I’m taking care of the Southeast Asia region, India, Korea, Japan, China, and Australia/New Zealand. I’m sure you know that among all these countries, they have very strong and unique cultures. So, my TA strategy can be regional but has to be localized as well. And this level of breakdown and localization is super critical for successful recruitment.

What works in India is not going to work in Japan, what works in Singapore is not going to work in Australia. It’s very important to have these specificities in my talent acquisition strategy. What helps me a lot today is that for Korea and Japan, for example, I have two fantastic local recruiters who are very close to the market, who speak the local language, and they can update me on a weekly basis on all the news, the latest updates about the government, the employment law, etc. So, I strongly rely on them to shape the best hiring strategy for their country directors and for these six countries that they are representing.

Lydia: How do you determine someone who is a great culture add or a great fit for the company?

Frederic: A candidate who is a great culture add or a great fit for the company is great, but these are just a few criteria that I use to qualify the talent to be a good hire for us. As I said previously, what I really pay attention to is soft skills. I want to hear and see how the person thinks, what is their thought process, how they digest information, and how they summarize discussions.

So, we do have technical assessments for technical positions. We also have business cases for sales and account managers. We also have data spreadsheet assignments for business analysts and data analysts. We really want to have this combo between hard skills and soft skills. But what defines the best candidate at the end of the process is not the one who can do the job and only the job right away. It’s also the candidate who will have room for growth, room for progression, and someone who is curious enough to go the extra mile and become the next future leader in the company.

How TA Supports the HR Strategy and Roadmap

Lydia: That’s great. The potential is also an important factor, definitely. And how do you define successful collaboration between HR and talent acquisition now that you’re in a TA function that you’re expanding in the region?

Frederic: Personally, I believe that TA should always be part of the HR team because it’s so important to have clear visibility on the HR strategy and roadmap to design a very effective TA strategy. But I noticed that more and more companies are starting to integrate TA with their business functions. Eventually, TA will be less connected to the HR teams, and this can create some miscommunication or misunderstanding in the long run.

How can TA and HR develop a very smooth relationship? I think it’s by having frequent meetings, at least weekly, asking for help or advice on any roadblocks that we face along the way.

We should work on similar strategic projects like career mapping, career metrics, succession planning, onboarding, learning and development, any type of training, and HR workshops, all of that are super important, I think, for a great integration between TA and HR. And also, having the chance to set up the best hiring practices together by making sure we have a high level of trust between each other.

Lydia: So, in terms of recruitment processes, how do you go about streamlining your recruiting processes, and improving talent sourcing capabilities as you go along?

Frederic: Streamlining recruitment processes is something that got asked every time you start a new TA function. They always ask you, “Can you please streamline recruitment processes?” The issue comes from the fact that a TA function is not well understood by many companies. I was surprised to see that when I was introducing myself as a TA professional, many companies were asking me, “What is the difference between TA and recruitment?” And I think the distinction between these two terms is not super clear for everybody.

When I joined the company as a TA professional, I realized that a lot of workflows and processes were only related to recruitment and not to the TA's general function. So, it’s always one of the biggest challenges for me to tackle when I start a new role.

I think it’s important to have a yearly or semi-annual audit, year after year, to really assess what’s working and what’s not working, to analyze the situation, and start to identify the improvement areas with the hiring team.

To really understand them as well, what were their previous experiences with the recruiter? Were they satisfied or not satisfied? Is there anything we could work together on? If they want us to have a higher level of engagement with the hiring team as well because if a team is hiring, they should not just rely on us because we are the recruiter or the talent acquisition team. I really believe that recruitment is a team effort. If we are hiring someone for that team, it’s imperative that they are involved in the process.

So, once it’s done, we need to design a roadmap that will define all the priorities, timelines, outcomes, and the owners of each sub-project. And for the second part of the question, how to improve talent sourcing capabilities; I’ve always been someone who likes to promote mentorship and coaching to the younger recruitment professionals. I also like to provide one-on-one training sessions with learning and development opportunities.

I always ask my team if there’s anything that they would like to learn, any certification that they would like to go for, or any online classes [that they want to join]. So, we bought an account on LinkedIn Learning for all our TAs globally. We have the chance to have courses and classes and lessons talking about TA and any type of topic. That’s really great to help them to enhance their capabilities in terms of sourcing talent, how to find the best candidate, how to qualify them, how to interview them, etc.

Data-Driven Decision-Making for Scaling Up Talent Acquisition

Lydia: And moving into talent sourcing and assessing, as you mentioned earlier, looking back into what’s working and what’s not, there’s also a need to become more data-driven, more analytical, even more mathematical, so to speak, when it comes to recruitment. So, how do you go about inculcating that in your team?

Frederic: So, we have a fantastic data team who created a matrix called ‘an assessment matrix’ with scorecards. Basically, based on the type of interview we want to conduct with the candidates, we’re going to have certain questions assessing certain types of behavior or technical skills and we assign a score from one to five. And at the end of all these questions with the level of answer provided by the candidates, we have a total of points that’s going to qualify the candidate for a pass or a fail. And thanks to these data, we are able to scale up our decision-making using data and it’s working really well.

Lydia: In terms of attracting and retaining talent at RTB House or maybe anywhere else, what are some challenges that you faced in attracting and retaining talent? How have you overcome that? What's the workaround?

Frederic: In terms of attracting talent, I’m sure that you know, we all face hiring managers who are asking us to find a unicorn, or the other scenario is, “Please find me someone who can start yesterday or tomorrow.” In some of my previous experiences, the problem didn’t come from the unreasonable expectations from the hiring team, or the high level of criteria. They eventually are all aware of the difficulty to find these talents. They never say to you, “I think it’s easy, you should find someone for me, please do your best.” But how to hire the best and hire fast, I don’t think today a hiring manager will have this kind of discussion with us.

But in reality, what happened to me in my previous job is that the problem came from the nature of our business, our geographical situation, and also the product that we were building. So I’m going to explain that. The only talents who were able to help us and to be a plug and play, as they call it, you hire and one week or two weeks, they immediately can start working with no supervision, etc. They were all based in the U.S. and in Europe. In APAC, we are in an industry that was not mature at the same level.

So, it was really difficult to connect with these talents in the other part of the world, get their interest, go through the interviews, get the offer approved, and relocate them here in Southeast Asia because, for some of these particular positions, they cannot work remotely. They must relocate to Singapore. And based on the level of seniority, some of them have a family. So it means we need to provide a relocation package and some of the big issues we encountered were the kids’ schools. They just started the school year term or they have mortgages to pay for their house or they just bought a car and they need to sell all of that or find solutions with their family.

So, what I did was put in two big projects to overcome these issues. The first one was to rely on our internal recruitment team. Since it was a big group worldwide and we have different business entities, I actually discussed with some HR teams based in the headquarter in France. And we actually put together a strategy based on seniority and based on the job family. We were trying to map internally who was about to finish their mission and who would be interested in starting a new mission relocating internally within the group to Singapore.

We did a full talent mapping, we did a pitching, we did a lot of initiatives that eventually we managed to get a few talents. And that worked really well for just a few months as a mission. However, it was really a tremendous help.

Meanwhile, for external talent from the U.S. and the EU, we worked in partnership with the HR team to redesign and build a very solid relocation package. And just these three are big expenses for living in Singapore. So, by providing this help it also brought good success for us.

Lydia: That’s interesting. And you talked about internal mobility as well. What was the success rate for that? It would have definitely plugged some of the immediate business needs that came into play during that time.

Frederic: I have to say that I only used internal mobility for key critical positions, not all of them. I think it was probably for five or six key positions. We didn’t manage to fill all of them. Because when you have someone, same scenario, a leader with a family, the kids are at school, they are in Canada or the U.S., it’s quite hard to relocate them to Singapore. But we are in a very attractive region where it’s actually warmer, the climate is a bit better. If you like to feel the heat and the humidity, it’s the perfect place in the world.

Lydia: So, is that an attraction for candidates that are coming from across the world?

Frederic: It’s a great icebreaker [and] it’s actually attractive for them. ****[We’re] giving them an opportunity to come under the sun where the sun lasts 12 months. People who are living in Canada have to live in a winter that lasts for five to six months.

Lydia: Well, the weather is a good friend to you then.

Frederic: Absolutely. Yes.

Essential Skills and Insights for a Talent Acquisition Specialist

Lydia: And I liked that you talked about some quick-thinking ways about how you can plug immediate business needs, how you can bring the most value to the company and also to a person who’s moving abroad taking that risk. I like how talent acquisition has played a much larger role than just filling a need for talent at that point and it’s true.

So, on that note, how do you define the role of talent acquisition partners in today’s context? And what does a TA specialist need to have?

Frederic: The TA professionals must develop a strong partnership with their hiring team. They can’t build solid support or support the business teams without rapport, relationship, or trust. I know it’s easier said than done, but it’s critical.

Talent acquisition today is not a simple executant. They must bring value, advice, and recommendations. They must also say no because they have market insights and knowledge that the hiring team may not have.

That’s why I feel that in this context, a TA will bring more value if there’s a strong integration with the hiring team. They should review CVs together, interview candidates together, and even sit in the corner of the room during the first interview. The TA can give some recommendations to the hiring manager who shouldn’t feel like there's a lack of trust. Sometimes the hiring manager will say they have been recruiting for 10 years and they don’t need our help. But it’s good to hear from a younger perspective about things like DE&I factors, types of questions, gestures, and body language that maybe some of the hiring team can learn from the TA team.

Lydia: I find it very interesting to not just observe or give feedback, but also add new ways of doing things. The candidate expectations have changed over time in terms of candidate experience. So, we need to ensure that there’s good feedback between the hiring managers and the recruiters.

Frederic: I like to let my TA team manage the relationship with the hiring team. I don’t need to be involved unless there’s something deeper that I need to know. But I think the hiring manager and the hiring team should communicate regularly and even have coffee or lunch together. They should share some moments in their work life to build rapport and trust. We don’t need to force anything, but it has to come naturally with our professionalism and quality of advice and service. The hiring manager will realize that we are valuable to them and they should listen to us more. That’s what I think.

On another level, as a manager, I also ask them during performance reviews or strategic discussions about talent acquisition growth and service delivery if they are satisfied with us and what we can do to improve. I’m always proactive to challenge the status quo and I ask my team to do the same.

Resolving Feedback Disagreements in the Hiring Process

Lydia: So, what ways to think about implementing DE&I strategies in the hiring process or in the talent acquisition strategy?

Frederic: One of my key initiatives was to diversify the panel of interviewers. In my space, technology, there is low gender diversity. It’s usually 80% male and 20% female. But the industry is changing and we can see more DE&I initiatives. So, what I did was handpicked the best representatives of each team and seniority to be present during the interviews. I made sure that there was at least 50% female and 50% male for each stage. And every time we had two interviewers, it was always one male and one female.

And it was great because we wanted to give a chance to hire more people from various backgrounds and perspectives. When we did the feedback, it was great to see the different opinions. One would say, “Wow, I love this person because of this.” And the other would say, “Oh no, I don’t want this person. They are not a good culture add. The soft skills are not there.”

So, it was good to have this mix of perspectives and have a healthy debate on how to select talent for the next round.

Lydia: If you've got two contrasting perspectives, how do you make a decision around that?

Frederic: We need to bring a judge. The judge could be me or the head of the department. Based on the pros and cons, we try to scale what’s the priority and what’s more important for the role. And based on that, we ask the head of the TA team, me, or the head of the department of the job to make a call to go to the next round.

By reassuring the person who said no, we say that we hear their feedback, we understand, and we just want to give them a last chance to see if they prove us wrong. So, it’s with tact, diplomacy, and question to make sure we are not hurting their ego and continue the smooth process this way.

AI’s Effects on a Talent Acquisition Specialist’s Decision-Making Skills

Lydia: That’s great. But it all comes back to clarity and knowing what you want out of the role and also being tactful and having great communication skills. Speaking of communication and technology and diversity, there are plenty of tools out there. We see ChatGPT being the biggest hype in generative AI in the last few months, right? So Frederic, what is the impact of generative AI tools and AI technologies overall for recruitment?

Frederic:  First of all, I think we need to forget the idea that AI is going to replace people and do the full recruitment in the future. I think TA is a human function with a lot of psychological aspects. And a robot will never have a brain or a debate function that we have like the judgment, criteria, and assessment of a problem. We are really far from that. At the moment, I think AI is an incredible support for us. It helps us make better decisions based on data and it makes our job easier by automating tasks.

So AI in recruitment has a significant impact. For example, it can speed up the whole hiring process by automating tasks. It relies only on data and it eliminates the unconscious bias that we can have from a human perspective. It provides good engagement with the candidates and it can screen thousands of applications in a few seconds. We can also use chatbots that can provide immediate information to the candidates in the process.

We can use AI video tools that can save time for screening in the first round. We can use AI for reference checks and onboarding. We can also use AI today for automating scripting when we are recording a video. We can have an AI that captures every word we say and summarizes the notes and shares them automatically with specific people. So we don’t have to remember what we say or take notes etcetera. I find it fascinating. But I’m not scared in the future that AI is going to replace us and there will be fewer jobs in recruitment for people. I think it will be a matter of adaptation and support.

Lydia: So, if AI takes on the manual tasks and automates most of the things that used to take up time, how might the TA function be elevated in this sense such as the decision-making skills? What sort of factors would you have to look into?

Frederic: Hiring more based on data for sure. Because if we have more insights and information from all these AI tools, platforms, and support, it’s going to make our life easier for sure. And the second one is to make sure that we are not biased by our unconscious bias.

As I said, when we have someone in front of us, it can be a handsome man or a pretty girl. We want to push this person to go to the next round. It’s inside of us, we can’t control that. If we are ex-professional sportsman and we find on the resume that this person went to the Olympics or did the same sport as us, we automatically create some affiliation here. And we also want to help this person unconsciously to go to the next round and get this job. So, the AI tool disrupts everything like that and just relies on pure facts and insights rationally that maybe sometimes humans need.

Lydia: Thank you so much, Frederic. You’ve given a breadth of perspectives, strategies, and examples. They’ve been really nice to hear and I’m sure the audience will find them very useful. They have to keep changing and evolving as they go along and you yourself have moved from a sales background into talent acquisition, which actually requires a lot of sales skills.

Frederic: Exactly.

Keeping Up With The New Trends and Tech

Lydia: It’s just in a different mode and for a slightly different goal. So what advice would you give someone who’s starting out in talent acquisition today, given all the circumstances that we’ve just talked about?

Frederic: I would say my best advice would be to keep up with the new trends in tech, because it’s so important to be tech-savvy in the future for any role or specialization. Today, you have tech in education, which is ‘EdTech.’ You have tech in advertising, which is AdTech. You have tech in climate, energy and environment, which is Climate Tech. You have tech in finance, which is FinTech. You have tech in medical, which is MedTech. All these industries are following the tech industry. So, I really think my best advice would be to become tech-savvy and understand the trends within technology.

And also, that’s my personal opinion, but I really believe in the future of Web 3.0 with all these blockchain and decentralized finance and crypto platforms that are going to revolutionize our future. So, even if you’re not a firm believer, I would still recommend keeping an eye on it, understanding how it works, and following the next updates because it’s going to happen quite fast.

And if the companies today miss this opportunity, it’s going to have a big impact on their future. So again, Web 3.0 is just my own opinion. But more broadly, I think taking a specialization in tech and making sure to maybe go on Coursera or LinkedIn Learning and get certifications or go online for classes and understand digital marketing etcetera is going to be extremely important.

Lydia: Yes, that’s right. The disruptions used to happen maybe in a span of three years or two years. And it’s getting shorter and shorter until we have to do it every day, so to speak, just to keep up with the trends, what’s happening out there, the development and to be able to recruit, right?

Thank you so much for your time and your insights. I’m sure whoever is listening in would want to connect with you. So, drop us your contact details.

Frederic: Sure. You can find me on LinkedIn - Frederic Bonifassy - it’s kind of straightforward. You can also reach out to me on my personal email, which is frederick.bonifassy@gmail.com and I’d be happy to connect with you.

Lydia: Thank you so much. We have been in conversation with Frederic Bonifassy, head of talent acquisition for APAC at RTB House.

Thank you for joining us this week. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels to stay tuned for more weekly episodes from All-In Recruitment.