The transformative impact of AI on recruitment is reshaping how organizations attract and evaluate talent. From the “arms race” between AI-powered resume sorting and AI-generated applications to the challenges of identifying quality candidates, dive into how smarter AI tools can enhance screening mechanisms and improve hiring outcomes. Frank Congiu, executive vice president of human capital strategy and executive partnerships at Randstad, emphasizes: “This challenge of the needle in the haystack hasn’t changed — it’s just enhanced. AI tools are enabling a spray-and-pray approach, but better screening mechanisms can help us pick out the best talent from that haystack.”
The transformative impact of AI on recruitment is reshaping how organizations attract and evaluate talent. From the “arms race” between AI-powered resume sorting and AI-generated applications to the challenges of identifying quality candidates, dive into how smarter AI tools can enhance screening mechanisms and improve hiring outcomes.
Frank Congiu, executive vice president of human capital strategy and executive partnerships at Randstad, emphasizes: “This challenge of the needle in the haystack hasn’t changed — it’s just enhanced. AI tools are enabling a spray-and-pray approach, but better screening mechanisms can help us pick out the best talent from that haystack.”
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Nichol: Welcome to the A IHI project. I'm Nichol Bradford SHRM's, executive and Residence for AI Plus. Hi. This week we're exploring how CHROs are thinking about AI adoption, what's resonating, what's happening, and the emerging challenges and opportunities in the workplace. Our guest is Frank Congiu, executive Vice President of Human Capital Strategy and Executive Partnerships at Randstad.
Frank, welcome to the A IHI project.
Frank: Thanks, Nicole. Great to be here.
Nichol: So we like to start with background. You have spent your career in human capital strategy, workforce advisory, and leadership development. What drew you to this space and how has your perspective changed over time?
Frank: Um, you know what's interesting? I'd say it, it, it really started off serendipitously. Um, so I went to school for accounting and [00:01:00] psychology and my intent was doing something in that space. about right as I was getting ready to find my first job, I met a guy named Keith Rozy and. Keith is a phenomenal connector and speaker and I had a chance to see him on stage and he asked me, you know, why did you take this job?
I was actually driving him to a keynote on a Saturday morning. And from that moment, it's when I started actually working for him directly and I evolved into this space. And then years later got recruited by the Adecco Group. And at the time I didn't really know much about HR, but I thought, I think I know how to get to meet executives in HR.
So this, this one thing that I think I always wanted to do was helping people. So I thought that was what I was gonna do through psychology, and now I'm able to do it at scale through the role that I have at Randstad.
Nichol: That's great. The um, Keith Ferrazzi is one of the people that we have in common because when I was getting out of. Business school. He, I was connected to him through a friend and he's so [00:02:00] generous with his time. He made time for me when I was out in LA and we connected. And so I have that overlap with you.
Nichol: would you share with our audience what is radical innovators? Who does it bring together who should get in touch with you if they'd like to be a part of it? Um, but could you say more about what it is? Because I love it. I love it and I want our audience to know about it.
Frank: Yeah. Thank you. So radical Innovator is something that I was incredibly excited about a couple years ago when you joined us at the TAD Conference, where it was really born in terms of the first in-person event. But the concept started a little bit prior to that where Keith Razzi and I were talking about so many of these organizations are going to get left behind, and how do we have less Kodaks and, and more that are leading from the front? And so the belief started off with CHROs where, where I have a, a strength in, in relationship and CIOs where Keith happens to have a strength in relationship. then we said, okay, well [00:03:00] we know that we need to be able to basically extract the best practices from what organizations are doing and try to think about how to multiply these. these organizations to partner on exercises together. Right. So AI adoption, well, how do you radically accelerate that within an organization? The reality is one organization may have some best practices and others might have some. And if you took these together, what sort of playbook could you create? I think the differentiator is what pushes the thinking for these leaders. So we've been bringing together a lot of unicorn tech founders who are doing radically different things. That enterprises couldn't even fathom. And when they come in the room and they share some of these best practices and we push these enterprise leaders to then think about what is one thing you can go do differently tomorrow, I.
Test that in your organization. And when we get back on the next quarterly call, and then of course again on the next in person summit, we're try, we're, we're effectively to use a a, a Keith Ozzy word. We're coating. We're building [00:04:00] this together. we just believe that in this, in this world, there's, there's too much good happening and there's too much to happen where we don't have to operate from a scarcity mindset. So, you know, we're very open in terms of we've had Amazon, Walmart, and Target all in the same room. We've had Pepsi and Coca-Cola in the same room because this is really in spirit of making sure that we lift everyone up, not about holding all of the, the secret sauce to ourselves.
Nichol: so you've been engaging with CHROs through your dinner series and actually I went to one of the dinners, which is where I think that we also really connected the first time.
And with it, you bring together HR leaders, um. What inspired you to create these conversations and, and what have you been learning from them?
Frank: So it's probably helpful to give some context to that. I think the way it started was I fell into the HR space. And I realized that I needed to give people a reason to wanna spend time with me. Um, so as someone that has zero HR background, why would any [00:05:00] CHRO want to take time to spend with me? the realization was it wasn't going to be me.
It wasn't gonna be the company I worked for, but it needed to be through and with other people. So I hosted my first CHRO dinner with Keith Razzi back in 2015. I got fairly lucky because I reached out to one CHRO. They said yes, and then I name dropped them. And I name dropped the next one. And next thing you know, I had the CHROs of IBM.
And. Accenture and MetLife, and it was just this phenomenal table. later on I did the next one with Marshall Goldsmith. I did the next one with Ariana Huffington. And what I started to realize was that was a pretty good formula for success when you put the spotlight on someone else and then you ship the conversation to the individuals at the table.
Because every one of these HR leaders either has best practices that they can share, that their peers can benefit from. Or conversely, they're going through something, they're struggling either personally or professionally, and they can leverage the people around the table. So it really was born out of that.
Um, it's now grown significantly where this is my full-time role, not hosting dinners, but [00:06:00] um, giving back to the HR community. my wife likes to remind me that it's only May 28th and I've already hosted 25 of them this year. So I'm on pace to eclipse what I've typically done, but I'd say there's a couple things.
I find immense value in this. Number one. Because I think HR practitioners tend to be very inwardly focused, and I see this all the time, particularly when a CHRO leaves an organization, they need to then build their network. And I always have to coach them. You know, you should have been building this before you needed it, let me help you anyway.
And so this is one of those things where I get a lot of excitement from on the personal and the professional front.
Nichol: Mm-hmm. Well, what struck me about the dinner that I attended was of course the subject of ai. That's really what's coming up. And there were, I, I found a lot of value. So, you know, my work at SHRM is that I'm focused on hi plus, I mean AI Plus HI, [00:07:00] and really looking at and understanding how uh, AI is being implemented across.
HR uh, through across HR, through HR, across organizations. And so it was a big chunk of the conversation of people exploring what works, what didn't work what they're, you know, what they're curious about. And, and I found it incredibly valuable and it also made me think that you would be perfect to.
Come onto our podcast because the vantage point that you have is really extraordinary. So I'd love to, so, we'll, we'll talk about AI a little bit more adoption, but specifically, let's go for a moment into Randstad. What are some of the biggest ways that AI is transforming recruitment? What are you seeing from your vantage point at Ronstadt?
Frank: There's a lot of [00:08:00] things, right? So if I think about what Ronstadt does, we are the world's largest talent organization. Um, and largely we're known for sourcing candidates for large organizations, right? And so we're known for that contingent frontline staffing. think about that, what I think the biggest thing that AI is doing is improving the experience through these AI power chatbots. And these conversational pre screeners that allow for automated interviewing. So put yourself in the shoes of a frontline worker. You work for a massive organization, you maybe work the night shift. how are you going to be able to interview for another role? And it's if you think about it, recruiters tend to work nine to five, but these people need to be able to interview later in the evening.
And so we found there's a large percentage of employees or, candidates that are actually interviewing in the after hour, so 7-9PM we actually find there's a decent percentage of individuals that now have the ability to leverage AI interviewing. And they go through this at [00:09:00] 11PM 1AM So a pretty decent percentage of the population, which we were blown away by.
but, actually, if you think about it, it makes sense. This is when they have the time to do it, and it doesn't require a human in the loop. And transparently the, results we're seeing so far are better. So that's one piece is really, I think it's improving experiences and it's making opportunity more accessible. The other piece is really understanding or improving our understanding of talent and jobs and this concept of skills matching and capabilities. So there's so many organizations that have talked about this skills first approach. Um, and we're no different. I think we are. We talk, we talk the talk.
We're, we're starting to walk the walk now because we're able to do that through the leverage of ai. So Torque is one of the organizations that we hired. Um, we've also partnered very closely with Hired Score from its infancy all the way through to its acquisition of Workday. we've now formed a strategic partnership with Workday around their AI powered recruiting agent. So we're using a, we're, we're, we're trying to be [00:10:00] incredibly AI forward. I still think we're, we're learning a lot, particularly as it relates to skills-based hiring and enabling our clients to be able to do that.
Nichol: Hmm.
Frank: But this, this piece around just how much recruiter productivity is enhanced and our, and our partnership with Google and Gemini Workspace. seeing a ton of that. And I think where we're going to get even better is around the predictive analytics to make sure that people are not only hiring. For the right fit, but they're also thinking about how to enable that talent to build the right pipelines of talent. So getting the right people in the organization, making sure these the right people then stick around.
Nichol: One of the things that we've been hearing from from people is that one of the side effects of AI in talent has been the on one side, the companies are using AI to sort the resumes. Uh, and the applicants are using AI to submit the [00:11:00] applications, and it feels like there's a, a bit of an of, of a, of an arms race where people are applying to now a thousand jobs and not really hearing back.
What, what are your thoughts on that? I know that's probably a different segment of the market, but I'm curious as to what do you think is happening there?
Frank: Well, I don't know that that problem has ever changed. Um, maybe it's just enhanced this challenge of the needle in the haystack, right? That you're just get doing it in a, in a greater level because it's enabled, enabled by, and ai, AI to get those out there. I have is that the screening mechanisms become better so that yes, people are taking a little bit more of a spray and pray approach. as a result of the, the ai tools, you're able to hopefully pick out better from that needle in the haystack. I can't say that we're seeing a ton of that specifically yet, at least me personally, for my, for my role. And I can't say that I'm hearing a ton of that from the CHROs that I work with.
Nichol: Well, I, I [00:12:00] really love that the opportunity enhancement from people really being able to do the initial screenings at any time that it works for them. It makes a lot of sense for parents too. You know, they can do it after. After, you know, they finished doing some of the family things that they need to do.
And so, you know, that, that I think is exciting. And, and we're seeing things like that too in terms of more diverse baskets that people are going through or seeing
Frank: Hmm.
Nichol: the quality of the applications broader reach. And so I, I, I'm eager to see as it matures, it get to the place that you described where.
People can really pre develop their top their pipelines. Applicants can also pre develop their skills and that, you know, everyone in the marketplace can really see one another and the right talent can find the right. I. Uh, [00:13:00] homes, next Homes. Okay. So switching over to your conversations with CHROs, how do you see, just in general HR leaders thinking about AI adoption and what are some of the themes that have been coming up most frequently at dinners or at other things that you've, you've done with Randstad?
Frank: Yeah, it's a great question because this is part of the reason that we you mentioned the stuff with Keith Razzi and radical innovators have been incredibly intentional about bringing CIOs into the mix as well. But if I think about it through the lens of CHROs, it's been this, this dynamic of navigating excitement and fear. So there's, there's all this fear mongering around jobs going away. Um, and you certainly see some of this and you hear I believe it was Spotify, CEO saying you cannot hire a anyone else in the list. You can prove that job has cannot be done with ai. So there's, there's that, that element of it. Um, I think there's a lot of organizations that are doing this incredibly well.
Like IBM they're thinking about how do we [00:14:00] leverage and scale AI as much as possible without losing the soul and the culture of the organization. there's a few areas or, or promising use cases. I, I'm starting to see at least number one, just because of the business we're in recruiting at scale, right?
So this concept, again, that I mentioned about intelligent skill matching and optimization I feel like the talent intelligence. So getting to know our, our own talent is becoming a lot better. Uh, organizations like Glo, where they've got the, the, the talent mark marketplace that I think is probably the best in class does this really well. And then what quite there across a lot of the organizations, but I love what Walmart's done in the app they've been able to take personalized learning through AI and make sure that it's applicable and readily available for all of the frontline. and then everyone up in into the senior ranks of the organization.
And they've handed, they've, you know, they've provided people with devices, they've made the content bite [00:15:00] size, they built it into the day. what I would love to see more of is the organizations that are thinking about just 'cause I have a passion for the frontline worker. I come from a blue collar family.
Um, and, and so this is something that I think about often though, is it'd be phenomenal if these tools could start to think about how to best schedule for the business, but then they could build in. Learning and development into the, the journey. In addition to then thinking about like all the benefits.
So if you, let's just play this out. uh, a person that works at Walmart. They have access to guilds free decree programs. They have access to Walmarts upskilling and reskilling education programs. That doesn't mean they're going to do it because they're busy and they're running from one thing to the next, and then they want to get to their break and they maybe have children. So if they could take some of the time out and build that intentional learning into the day through the leverage of AI tools, knowing when stores are busier and less busy I think that would be an ultimate unlock and something that I'd be really excited to see.
Nichol: [00:16:00] Someone else who, or another organization that's doing a, a great job with getting people to learn and develop with AI is Salesforce and they have a internal talent connect. Um. Platform. And they were recently at the A IHI conference, and one of the things that they shared was that when they, you know, when they, so on their platform, you can go in and you can learn things and build out.
The skills that you need to have in order to be very frontline in this AI or to be up to date in this AI world. And they have a culture where making things mandatory doesn't work. It doesn't work for their culture. And and so, you know, on the, I. Continuum. There's mandatory on the one side and on the other side it's choose your own adventure.[00:17:00]
And so one of the things that I thought was wonderful is they knew they couldn't make it mandatory and they wanted a bit more attention on it than choose your own adventure. And so what they did is they just put it into the performance. Um, into the performance analysis, how AI forward you were. And with that they have over half their population going through and updating their skills.
Uh, and so I thought that was really interesting. So one of the things I'm curious about also, because you have this great a vantage point to see what people are doing, how are you seeing what are some of the other things that you're seeing? That organizations are doing to just get their own HR teams up to speed on AI increasing their own AI literacy.
Any any great stories there? I.
Frank: I don't dunno if these, this is a great story, but I think back to when chat GPT first came out and Dean Carter said [00:18:00] to me so Dean Carter at the time was a CHR of Guild and now he's with modern, he said he was, he made every person, and so this was maybe opposite of Salesforce, but he said, every day, every person's gonna spend one hour.
Um, figuring out and writing prompts and just playing around and, and using chat GBT and then it didn't have to produce results. I think it was just like, number one, encouraging experimentation because you know, there was, there was a CHRO at a summit that I was at last week, shared a stat, which was, kind of sad actually.
So they've spent a ton of money and rolled out all these tools of the employees are actually using them. They did a survey and learned that 73% of the respondents indicated they are using ai, but they're only using it on their own devices because there's this lack of trust in terms of what the organization is looking at in their own searches and what they're using that data for and if it's gonna penalize them in their own work product.
So if they do something and they become more efficient through ai, are they effectively eliminating their own role?
Nichol: [00:19:00] Mm-hmm.
Frank: And this is like no different than if you were in sales 20 years ago or maybe even today, and you don't put your contacts into Salesforce because the second year Rolodex is no longer yours.
You're replaceable or the, that people have that. I think it's going a couple things. Number one, if I think about your original question, it's experimentation, right? Um, two would be this concept of, um. Making sure that people don't feel replaceable, but that this is, you know, finding the accretive value towards it and celebrating people for it as well.
Um, I think about behavior change, if you try to mandate things, maybe you get some, but when you en encourage and, and sort of celebrate the, the early adopters, it's when you start to get to the real outcomes and then you celebrate those best in class examples and it becomes a scalable high return practice across the organization.
Nichol: Yeah. Well that leads to the future for sure. You know, since we, you know, booked this time with you, some [00:20:00] major announcements have come out. Um, Moderna is moving it into HR and, uh. You know ServiceNow's, CHO, Jackie Cheney is taking on a lot of AI responsibilities. And one of the things that we've definitely seen and and have said is that because the HR leads in the organization, they actually, you know, they, they're with the employee on every stage of their lifecycle from learning and development.
It's like onboarding, learning and development, all of the things, all of those. Uh, all of those HR service centers are developing or are bringing in a certain level of, of AI for the service center. And then additionally for the employees, no matter what part of the business they're working in, HR is a part of them becoming AI fluent in one way or another.
Um, and so. How do you see, and I wanna talk about how we think the, the HR [00:21:00] field is going to change in this AI world. What are your, what are your thoughts on Moderna and ServiceNow and where do you think it's going? I.
Frank: I love to say that I had a crystal ball on this because again, this is what Radical Innovators was born out of, was this partnership needs to become more and more critical, and CIOs historically never even saw the CHRO as a peer, right? I think there were 10 years ago, it was the CHRO needed to get a seat at the table. COVID hit, they had the biggest seat at the table and needed to learn what to do with it. it's almost like this. Um, and I don't know, I'm playing around with this title, chief Reinvention Officer. I think there would need to completely reinvent work and the best CHROs. Were always the ones that are incredibly grounded in business, and I think about people like Donna Morris.
I. Or nickel from IBM or
Stephanie
Nichol: Yeah.
Frank: Kramer. didn't come from HR. She actually came from marketing, came from one of the business units. if you look at their backgrounds or Lucian, who was the CHO of Prudential [00:22:00] previously, these are people that are true business leaders. not HR people.
Um, and so I think those are always number one. The strongest two are the people now, like what does that mean going forward? It's really gonna be the people that are reinventing work. So what is the work to be done? I. and who's going to do the work? And it's not all, not gonna be people. Um, it's gonna be a blend, right?
And so how, what does that look like to now manage bots, all these AI tools? Um, and so you're hearing things like chief work Officer because it's not about chief people anymore, or human resources. There's a lot of other resources that are going to get work done, and you're responsible for all of that.
Nichol: Yeah, because one of the things that we're, we're seeing, and, and I remember, I. Probably about six months ago looking at agents and AI agents and work and just sort of like the, you know, the treatment of, of an AI agent as it's [00:23:00] doing task and as it's doing work that it was, it was clear that someone was going to have to manage.
Those, and so there was the role of enabling them just from a technical standpoint, but then there was also the role of checking their work. Overseeing them, being responsible for them. And so I think it was, I, I, I think what will happen is that different organizations will take different paths so that align with their culture because in some organization, the, the CDO, the CTO, the CIO is really a, you know, a very, also a broad thinking strategic person.
And then in some organizations it's the other way. I think it'll. It'll follow the organization's culture. But to your point, it has everything to do with being a business person and an adaptable problem solver in really understanding how to change the workflows, redesign the work, et [00:24:00] cetera. Um, so one of the other things that, that I am seeing is.
As we move into, as more AI comes into the human service centers, human resources, service centers, there's um, the ability to actually have a employee experience point of view. Uh, people, we've talked about it for a while, but actually to, to apply it is increasing. So, you know, what do you think? About how CHROs or, or HR organizations can, can use AI to improve the employee experience.
We've talked about applicant experience, but just sort of in general, what have you heard that they're doing or thinking?
Frank: Yeah. Well, the easiest way to improve employee experience is by using AI for all of the good things that it does, which is eliminate
all this soul sucking work that people can't stand. And these, sort of very administrative tasks that AI can take away. [00:25:00] The, the other piece that they can do, and I think they need to get better at, is building more trust through greater transparency. we have the CEO of um, A BM industries, and if you think about what A BM is, it's one of the largest well they're known largely for janitorial services, but they do everything from maintaining office buildings and they've got a massive organization. But their CEO has been very transparent in saying, we are going to humanoid robot conferences. We are thinking about how we replace some of this work as in cleaning bathrooms and airports through robots or cleaning windows and office buildings in the late evenings. I think this concept of number one, like what can you do to be really transparent, but then what can you use AI to make sure that it's not dehumanizing the work and instead of amplifying the things that we do as individuals, um. To make people better, right? So where can we amp up, ramp up what people are best at doing? And those lines are getting [00:26:00] blurred, by the way, because I mean, you hear the, the stats around doctors having less lesser bedside manner than, than AI has too. So I think it's, this is going to be one of those things where like, I don't have all the answers.
Right? I'd say it's, it's an interesting thing because the stuff that we, we typically would credit humans for being better at. AI is getting better at in some cases. So it's really trying to figure out what are those specific examples, and I don't know. I think we'll, we'll continue to learn certainly over the next year.
Nichol: what's the timeline for it to have settled down into us sort of knowing how to redesign work? Uh, organizations will sort of pick their path that aligns with their culture for, you know, where the. The reinvention of work sits well. How long do you think it's gonna take?
Is it five years, seven years, or sooner?
Frank: I think there's some organizations that haven't even touched this yet. And then there's, there's world [00:27:00] class organizations like IBM that are so far ahead of everyone or ServiceNow. So the, the question is really geared towards the organization and maybe the industry depending on, what sort of, what they do.
So services industries are certainly moving faster than manufacturing as an example, at least what I'm seeing. So. But if I think about a person that you connected me with and we had a call in Barney I think it's way further out than what I maybe initially thought. And, and what others are projecting.
Again, this is, if you listen to the talking heads on CNBC or Bloomberg, I think there's, there's a bit too much fear mongering of, of this all happening. Um, or two years down the road. I do believe it's more five to 10. Uh, as you talk to the real experts in ai.
Nichol: Yeah, I think one of the things that will happen is, you know, we actually, so from a tech standpoint, you know, we saw it with mobile, we saw it with the web, we saw it with mobile. It's like there was a period of where every [00:28:00] company had the word mobile. In their name, every new company. And then every takes about four or five years.
And then everyone just has a mobile app, you know, and you don't call it that. And so, you know, what I'm seeing in product and with the startups that I'm working with and the companies that I've been working with, is that everyone is, is exploring how they can use AI for greater personalization. And and so in a few years, it's just like we're just gonna know that there's AI in it,
Frank: Yeah,
Nichol: Yeah,
Frank: iPhone. Um, But, but to your point, I think about when, when.com, every single ad
Nichol: I,
Frank: and now you walk around any HR conference and every single thing is.ai. Um, I don't think that's slowing down anytime soon. Yeah.
Nichol: yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so the question that we like to leave. Our audience with always is for someone [00:29:00] who's, who's, you know listening or watching this conversation, what do they do the Monday afterwards? What's your advice to them? They're just starting their journey. What do they do?
Frank: Now this is j is HR specific or HR and AI specific.
Nichol: Well, HR and AI.
Frank: Yeah, I think again, the, if I go back, the, the, the number one thing is always around the business impact. What is this doing to drive impact in the business? So, I first think about like, what it is that you're measured on, and then think about a way that you can leverage an ai tool, whether that's one that your organization provides or one that's external. Um, maybe it is external and it'd be better because then you're pushing the organization's thinking. if it were in our organization, I'd be saying to someone, what can you do to help US drive a shorter time to fill rate for employees? What can you do to make sure that through our RPO [00:30:00] programs, I. We're making sure that those employees stay longer that they have greater satisfaction. So we've, our, our AI tools have effectively sourced it better individuals. But I, I think the, if the biggest thing is not boiling the ocean, there's so many ways to do it. Pick one thing that you're measured on, that you're passionate about and that you believe you can make a difference in, and then just, it's a lot of experimentation.
Nichol: That's great. I love the specificity of that advice. Look at what you're measured on. Pick one thing that you're measured on, and then look at how AI can help you accomplish what you're measured on and start there. Yeah, I think that's great. Well, thank you so much for your time. That is it for this week's episode of the A IHI project.
A big thank you to Frank for sharing your insights on how CHRs are navigating AI adoption. And for the audience before we wrap up, I encourage you. To follow the A IHI project. Wherever you enjoy [00:31:00] your podcast, and if you found today's conversation valuable, please take a moment to leave a review, a comment, share the episode.
It really helps spread the word. And you can find all of our episodes on our website at SHRM dot org slash a ihi, and thanks for joining the conversation and we will catch you next time.