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Kat Kibben: I understand the value of that moment in which you kind of say everything you need to and hope for something better. And that's what people do when they open up the internet and type in a job title. They type in these words, and they're praying that they can just have something better in their life, something that could truly change their life. And they shouldn't be met with buzzwords and cliches.

Jill Finlayson: Welcome to the Future of Work Podcast with Berkeley Extension and the EDGE in Tech initiative at the University of California, focused on expanding diversity and gender equity in tech. EDGE in Tech is part of CITRIS, the Center for IT Research in the Interest of Society, and the Banatao Institute. UC Berkeley Extension is the continuing education arm of the University of California at Berkeley.

In this episode, we're taking a very real look at how AI is changing the hiring landscape. Applicants are using ChatGPT to write job-opening specific resumes, which is in turn making applicants meld together in what this episode's guest calls a sea of sameness.

On the other side of the application, managers are turning to ChatGPT to help write job descriptions. This is creating job description templates that are not specific to the actual job position. So how do you cut through the AI red tape when it comes to job descriptions and applying? To discuss this important topic, we're delighted to speak with Kat Kibben.

Kat is an award-winning writer and renowned keynote speaker known for helping hiring teams write inclusive, unbiased job postings that help them hire the right person faster. Before founding Three Ears Media, Kat was a CMO, technical copywriter and managing editor for leading companies such as monster.com, care.com, and Randstad Worldwide.

Today, they are frequently featured as an HR and recruiting expert in publications like The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Forbes. Kat travels the country in their RV while dividing their time between North Carolina, Colorado, and the dogs behind the name, Three Ears Media. Welcome, Kat.

Kat Kibben: Thank you so much for having me, Jill. I really appreciate it.

Jill Finlayson: A great place to start is to really talk about job descriptions. What do we know about job descriptions, and how have people been writing them over the years?

Kat Kibben: Yeah, you know what's interesting is, when you say, what do people know about job descriptions? the answer is very little. When I've spoken around the world and I've asked a room, whether there are 20 people or 2,000 people in that room, to raise their hand if they were ever taught how to write a job description, I have never seen more than three hands go up, never.

And I always joke, you know, did you learn from me? Because prior to this research, prior to really digging into job descriptions, there were no experts yet. Everyone in the world was using these postings to interview and hire. And my research has gone back 100 years to look at job descriptions from the 1920s until the 2020s. And it fascinates me every time I see these really obvious parallels between 100-year-old postings and the exact same postings we're sharing today.

Jill Finlayson: So what is a job listing supposed to have in it?

Kat Kibben: A great job posting gives you three pieces of information, and these are psychological triggers for people. This is based on people, not HR best practices or recruiting. Those three things, the number one thing is impact. What do I do? Why am I there? Because we don't hire people for fun. We hire them because they have a business objective. So what is that impact?

The second thing is everyday activities, actually giving them an idea of what a day in the life means, because a marketing manager at one company and a marketing manager at another company could mean entirely different work from day to day. And the final thing, and this is where people get the most misguided information, is around mandatory requirements.

Let me remind everyone who's listening what mandatory means, because most people are not very clear on that. Mandatory means that without the help of God, Google and a really good mentor, you could not figure this out without having done it at some point somewhere else. And it is directly aligned to an everyday task that you do. It supports and develops your ability to be able to do those everyday tasks.

You know, and as I was saying that, there's a fourth thing. It's salary, because no one picks a job without knowing how much money they're going to make. But the reality is that the legal landscape right now in the US is that, I believe in the next five years, that will be nationally mandated.

Jill Finlayson: Let's break these down, because I think each one of these, there's more to unpack. So the first one is, and I really like this, the business objective. What are you trying to do and what are you in aid of? What do people do right in the job description about describing the business objective, and what do they do wrong?

Kat Kibben: Unfortunately, the thing they do wrong is they don't talk about it at all. This is about people who want to have an impact on this world. And what we're seeing in the research is that impact is becoming one of the most persuasive reasons why someone would choose you or your job.

And again, it's not, you're going to change the landscape of AI. It is, you're going to create a database that helps us create algorithms that will decide how people are hired. It's, you're going to create marketing materials that allow us to help more people in this world. And it's bringing together both the action piece, what is the primary deliverable, but also, how does that influence your business's ability to be successful?

Jill Finlayson: And why do you think this is so motivating to people to get this bigger context rather than just what the job itself is doing?

Kat Kibben: Because so many people have toiled away in the workplace for years and years and years, and felt like they had no influence on that business. And often, feeling like you have no impact is one of the reasons why you leave. And I also believe that there's a shift in society in which we want to have influence on other people.

We want to impact and make things better, and there's a genuine human instinct. It's probably in the hierarchy of needs somehow, right? Very closely associated with that hierarchy, because people need to feel impact to feel like they're valued. And when people feel they're valued, they don't leave.

Jill Finlayson: What about the everyday activities? How specific are we being here?

Kat Kibben: Very. The way that I tell people is, I want it in the language you would use to describe the work to your best friend's child. So you go to a restaurant and your best friend brings their kid, because the kid's interested in something that you do, and they ask you, what's it like? What will I do? The words that you would use next, that is the perfect language for describing everyday activities.

But it's not a laundry list. I want the three things that you're going to do a lot because most people's attention spans are very, very short, and the research shows that they are getting shorter and shorter. So we want to give them enough information to close their eyes and imagine the work, but also to be able to see, again, how that aligns with those requirements and the impact, and see the full circle of it, because that's another reason why people leave work, is because they want to do something a little bit different.

Jill Finlayson: So let's talk about the mandatory activities. One of the stats is that women look at mandatory activities and think, that is required. Therefore, I will not apply if I do not have these mandatory requirements. Whereas men or some other people might look at those and say, I should apply regardless. And so people have a different definition of "mandatory," and they have a different definition of how the game is played. What do you think mandatory actually is, and how is it used?

Kat Kibben: I think right now it is the center, the hub of bias inside of job postings, because often, it is greatly exaggerated and not necessarily aligned with the role. It's also a place where a lot of that buzzword bingo happens. And what's so fascinating about that to me is it's very unconscious bias that is centered in this. And that was the motivation behind my research, because I knew there was bias in there.

But people don't say we're biased towards someone with this. They just reemphasize it three different ways, or they say it in a certain way. And all of the data like you just mentioned in that study, where they put men and women side by side to read job postings, has been replicated many times.

But what they've layered on top of that now, and I just read this report, is where they started to put men and women side by side and asked them, why didn't you apply? What I find most fascinating about that in particular is that the metrics on gender are different on every single one. So if you ask men and women, why didn't you apply, they give them, you know, those parameters of why they didn't apply, the numbers are way skewed one way or another. There's no small margin of difference. It is excessive.

This is also where structural bias comes in. What I mean by structural bias is when a job posting goes from 7 bullets to 17 bullets, you will get more male applicants. It can literally be your technique, and mandatory requirements is where both technique and infrastructure bias of our history and our knowledge of job postings starts to show its ugly face, so to speak.

Jill Finlayson: So the last thing you said was salary. There's been a big movement towards salary transparency. What are you seeing as percentages? Do you have data about what we're seeing in resumes?

Kat Kibben: Right now, as far as salaries, unfortunately, it's only mandated in a few states, and there's not been given a lot of guidance around salaries. And so you go to some places, and they're giving very realistic ranges. And they also provide context of what the range means.

So the best-in-class example is a range. I don't care how wide the range is, but right below it, you explain that there is a location differential. And if you're seated in San Francisco, you'll make more money than if you're seated in rural Texas. And they explain that these are the requirements that are aligned with the top of our pay range, because ultimately, giving a range without context means we'll pay our best negotiators, not our best talent.

The other really negative outcome I'm seeing from this shift without education is that we're getting a 0 to a number range. And for any employers who are listening to this right now, no, no, no, no. Please, no zero. You're not going to pay anyone zero. It is a sign of how little you have knowledge into money, into how pay works and pay equity in your organization, if you're posting zero.

Jill Finlayson: So how did we get here? Has there been a shift in a change over time, or are people just taking the old job descriptions and adding to it?

Kat Kibben: No, that's the scariest part to me, right? There's been no fundamental change since, honestly-- I'd say in the '20s, the big fundamental change is that you didn't necessarily need a resume, because you'd just walk in there, and it was part of community. And everybody was just hiring their brother's friend or their uncles, whatever, and there was that more familial element.

I know that still exists today, but at a far lower percentage because of the introduction of the resume. I worked at monster.com, right, the first major job board in this space. We moved the job postings online. Honestly, Jill, if you look back on the history, that has been the biggest fundamental change. Nothing else about this relationship has fundamentally changed.

Jill Finlayson: Well, let's talk about that shift to online. Did the job descriptions change when they were copied and pasted online?

Kat Kibben: Big time. So what we saw is during the newspapers, you had a word count, and you had 50 words or you were going to pay another, fill in the blank, right, $50 to $100. And so now they moved digitally, and all of a sudden, we went from 50-word job postings to 5,000-word job postings. But I don't think that we actually made it better for anyone. I don't think that those 4,950 words came with more context. They came with more bias.

Jill Finlayson: Along with those words, sometimes people are making an effort to be inclusive, and they'll say something at the bottom like, please apply even if you don't think you meet all the requirements. What do you think about that?

Kat Kibben: I hate it. I hate it so much. I was working on some research about this just last night, and the reason that I hate it is because of what actually happens after you apply. And this is that transparency that I think most job seekers don't have, which is OK, you're sitting in the big bucket-- now what?

Most recruiters will not give your resume more than two seconds if you are not qualified, and then you go into the black hole. And the beginning of most searches does not start with the database, which is silly to me. Recruiters don't start their hunt for the best candidate by looking at their current database, especially in-house recruiters. The first thing they do is look at all of the people that applied.

And so maybe in a high-volume role where I hire 500 factory workers every year, absolutely, go ahead and apply. Director of marketing? Absolutely not. A niche role, a "there's only five of these in the organization" type role, you should not apply anyway, and it does not make it more inclusive. It makes the pool larger, and I feel it removes the recruiters' ability to have a connection with the job seekers who apply in the first place, or any kind of human touch point that makes someone feel valued.

Jill Finlayson: Let's go back and maybe do a day in the life of a recruiter, because I don't think people necessarily have sat on the other side of the table. So you put a job posting up. What happens?

Kat Kibben: So we'll put a job posting up, and based on if you're a government contractor or if you're a private business, the length of time that it's open can vary. If you are a government contractor, it has to be open for a minimum of three days. So let's go with that scenario, because it's like the tightest timeline. Let's say I open it for three days.

Right now, recruiters are getting 400 to 700 applicants on a role. And that is a consequence of AI. So job boards exist because employers weren't getting enough applicants, and so the job boards created this auto-apply, where you could say, I want to apply to all these businesses, and it just shoots out your resume to all of them. But now we've created that pile of resumes.

So the recruiter, based on role priority-- So maybe it's not the three-day role. They usually have-- the most I've ever seen someone have is about 25 roles on their desk. That's a little too many, and they are all at different stages. So a lot of multitasking, a lot of managing a lot of different pieces.

And so let's say they're working on that one role today. They're going to take that pile of resumes and do this quick scan. And this is where all of those rumors about the five-second glance at your resume begin. Recruiters who are using technology allow technology to do some of the five-second glancing.

But I got to tell you, the majority of businesses don't even know that could happen. And they're scared because they're watching the legislation coming right now as far as, they're really trying to create guidelines around selection. They don't want AI making the choice.

Jill Finlayson: So we were saying that the technology's scanning and it's reducing this pile, but we still have this recruiter who has 25 roles in progress that's been narrowed down to some smaller pool of applications. What does their day look like now?

Kat Kibben: Now they're making phone screens. So they're calling you to do a 10 to 15-minute conversation, or they're scheduling it via email. And we're doing a quick call to confirm that the information on your resume is actually the truth. And I want to hear from your voice, like the confidence, your ability to actually convey what you've done in your own words and not just to read your resume to me.

Then I have to take this pile. For me personally, I never go more than 30 to 50. So we've just done a cut from 300 to 30. So now I have about 30 people on phone screening. I'm going to take that down to a slate that's anywhere between 5 and 10, depending on the manager.

I'm going to take that pile to the manager, and the manager is going to select three to five to do the next round of interviews. And then we just cut and cut until we're getting to the place where we have the person and we're making an offer. And that process can take, depending on the manager and your response times, and a lot of bureaucracy that happens behind the recruiter that the recruiter has no control over, it can take anywhere between two weeks and three to five months.

Jill Finlayson: On the flip side, what is the applicant seeing or hearing, if anything?

Kat Kibben: That's the problem. They're seeing and hearing very little. I have aspirations. I want to see interview dashboards where job seekers could log in and be able to actually see what the status is. Like, we have all that data. We have all that information, and I don't actually think that a recruiter is capable of making those level of micro-communications. Communications. But the ATS isn't set up correctly to be able to create trigger messaging. The messaging hasn't been customized. And so nine times out of 10, the only thing the job seeker is getting is the no.

Jill Finlayson: So for folks who aren't familiar with ATS, what is that?

Kat Kibben: It's an Applicant Tracking System, and it is a glorified spreadsheet. And to any ATS creators who are listening to this, I'm sorry. Like, I know you have greater intentions. But ultimately, what used to be, like in the '90s, people had Excel sheets. And all the applications would go into the sheet. We would plug in all of the information. We would write yes, no next to each person and use that as the pile of people.

Now we have the digital version, where you can scan resumes by clicking through these prompts where it'll pop up the next resume, pop up the next resume, next yes, no. You can enter some of that information, and then based on your information, you can set up triggers that will communicate what's happening next.

Again, most people haven't done that. And then it's kind of setting up the messaging system as well. So they have this CRM, the relationship manager that partners with the ATS that will send messaging. Some have their own, but broadly, that's how it works.

Jill Finlayson: When somebody's saying yes or no, do they have to indicate why they're saying yes or no?

Kat Kibben: Only with the best ATS's. I believe that greenhouse has an ATS, and I think what they've done that's really interesting is creating a model where you can plug in a lot of other tools as well. But I believe in that system, you do have to indicate one way or another. Again, if you're a government contractor, there's kind of a separate set, and you have to indicate which of the mandatory requirements they did not meet.

Jill Finlayson: So this is the question that I would have, is you point out in the best-case scenario, we do have information, but that information is not being shared with the applicant. Is there a legal or policy reason why they're not sharing?

Kat Kibben: Number one, they're not sharing the reason you were disqualified because they're scared. Is there an actual policy that prevents them from having that communication? No. Is there one specific thing that would get-- no. But I think there is this broad perspective that if they give too much information, it will create a liability issue.

And recruiters aren't often trusted to have a conversation like that with a candidate. And so often, when a candidate asks for feedback, a recruiter is instructed not to give it. And it just adds to this really broken relationship where hiring feels hopeless for candidates.

Jill Finlayson: It really is frustrating, because in an ideal world, if you're not a fit for that job, that's fair. But could you point me to a place that I might be a better fit for? Or could you let me know where I have room for improvement? That sort of thing would be very helpful to your point about the fear factor and the liability factor. Do you see any way around that?

Kat Kibben: If they actually wrote requirements that were real. So let me give an example, years of experience. Well, we want 10 years of experience, but you only have eight. That is an absolutely useless metric to measure people on, because we all know that even if you and your best friend had the exact same job, you would not do the exact same work every single day, especially if you're at different companies.

And years of experience, it'll quantify time, but it does not qualify people on their ability to complete the projects, because again, how long you did something is very rarely an important measurement point as far as your ability to do the thing. There's only been one scenario in which I thought that years of experience made a lot of sense, and it was a scenario where I was working with an insurance company who was hiring medical doctors to review patient profiles when they were going on disability.

And here's the twist. They never talk to the patient, not once. And they needed to have a wealth of visits with a lot of people who had very similar types of injuries so that they could actually say, this is what I see happening, this was the appropriate treatment plan, and this is the amount of time they should take off, for example, because again, they're never talking to the person. And you have to have the experience of saying, like in my experience over 10 years of seeing hundreds of patients, and you needed that repetition in order to make that judgment call.

Jill Finlayson: I've seen in cybersecurity where they have that requirement, and yet the technology used in cybersecurity is changing every year. And one of the speakers we had at an event said, I don't use anything that I used in college. I don't use anything more than two years old. And so the question becomes, then, why the requirement?

Kat Kibben: Exactly. And often, it's because of government contracts, and because years of experience is a really easy way to say, well, you didn't have this many, this number.

Jill Finlayson: Well, the other thing the years of experience has been doing is really hampering new graduates' access to jobs. A lot of entry level jobs say, "three years of experience required," and I'm like, then that's not an entry level job, is it?

Kat Kibben: I tell employers, if it is an entry level job, meaning I will teach you everything you need to know, that's what I want you to write. No experience required. We will teach you everything you need to know. And in that scenario, I'm going to spend a lot more time on the everyday activities, because it is implied that if this is a new job and it is an entry level job, you are not familiar with what you'll be doing every day.

And ultimately, that would be the most persuasive factor, is that impact, and the everyday activities, on how do you want to spend your life. Because really, that's what we're asking people when you post a job, is do you want to spend a chunk of your life hanging out with us doing this thing?

Jill Finlayson: So what's your advice to new graduates?

Kat Kibben: I think the first is to actually try to understand what you love, to think about, where you feel that you thrive. So for me, it was always writing. Writing came really easy to me, and when I went out and looked for my career, I looked for roles where I had the opportunity to embed writing, or for that to be my primary deliverable.

I also think we need to think outside of the box a little bit. And recently, I actually created a free job title generator, which I'll make sure you have the link for the show notes. And basically, what it does is you can enter all the things you love to do, hit, Enter and have it generate the job titles back to you, because the biggest mistake I see college graduates making is they limit themselves too much.

And I'm probably the perfect example. So I remember saying to my advisor in college, I want to work at an ad agency. That was the cool marketing job, right. I'm a writer. I want to go to an ad agency. So I only searched "marketing associate." The second I expanded my search and I added three to five job titles to my exploration and bringing information in, that's when I started to be able to find roles, because not all job titles are linear, and you can really cut yourself off by not allowing yourself access to imagining different titles.

Jill Finlayson: Well, even if you're not a new grad, people are changing jobs every two to three years, so they're not staying within one company's structure. So knowing what the career path is and what the title is that you should be looking for is really hard to find. So I'm excited to hear about this job title generator. But how else do you find out what is the job that I'm doing? What's the next step up?

Kat Kibben: So what I typically do is I go look for someone who's already had that job at that company. And this is the best use of LinkedIn, especially when you're a new grad. You can click on the company name, and then they have a list of every single person that works there on LinkedIn. And you can click Employees and you can search the job title, and go find people who work in that department, who are more senior to that role, who are more junior to that role. Best-case scenario is the company gives you that information.

Jill Finlayson: It seems like another opportunity for AI to step in and create some job pathing, because that seems very valuable, to see what are the steps and how long did people spend on average at each of those steps.

Kat Kibben: It's also one of the most influential factors for someone to leave or stay, is their view of their talent mobility, meaning their ability to leave their job and go to another parallel or higher role, because the story we were all told, and I'm sure you were included in this, is if you want to make more money, if you want to get a promotion, you got to leave.

And that costs businesses a lot of money. On a micro level, if someone quits within the first 60 days and they make about $40,000, it costs your business about $28,000 between onboarding, backfill, recruiter time. It is a lot of money that adds up very, very quickly. And ultimately, you could be losing roles all together because of poor retention.

Jill Finlayson: There was one research study that looked at name brand universities versus not name brand universities, and the people from not name brand universities actually stayed at the job longer. So to your point about ROI on hiring, there was some real data there that said, if you want somebody who's going to be invested in your company, don't necessarily go with the bias for the name brand university.

Kat Kibben: Exactly. And so often when people are reviewing resumes, that's what they're looking for, the name brand business, the name brand university. But that is not an indicator of someone to be successful or someone who will stay. I mean, even job hopping isn't an indicator if someone will stay or not, especially now.

Like I always tell people, when people quit, they quit for a reason. No one wakes up in the morning and is like, I think I'm going to quit my super great job, this great executive role at a huge, well-known company. You know, I think I'm going to quit and go look for a job.

Like if you're at that point, a lot of bad things have happened, some out of your control, some in your control. And you're probably in a place where you're willing to change everything. And that was a big motivation for me around everything that I do, is understanding that someone is almost at a moment of confession.

I'm not a very religious person, but I understand the value of that moment in which you kind of say everything you need to and hope for something better. And that's what people do when they open up the internet and type in a job title, is that they type in these words, and they're praying that they can just have something better in their life, something that could truly change their life. And they shouldn't be met with buzzwords and cliches.

Jill Finlayson: You often hear, you should have left three months ago if you're looking at that point.

Kat Kibben: The mental health consequences of staying in a role that is bad for you are not well measured, but they are well reported on. I mean, I could find you 100 different articles right now about how people's mental health has suffered and how that has maybe created a financial liability because of health care.

They needed to be in more therapy because they struggle with their family. We lose so much when we pour ourselves into work, and we persist in roles that are bad for us. As someone who has definitely stayed in roles longer than I should have, and I'm just reflecting from my perspective, the cost was too high. It had impacts on my family. It had impacts on my friends. It had impacts on my life. And it also impacted my ability to show up at my next job.

And that's one of those lagging indicators that we don't often measure or talk about, is the fact that when you show up at your next job, you show up with a whole different set of insecurities, fears. If you've ever been laid off and you go to your next job, your number one fear is that you're going to get surprised and get laid off again. How do people thrive if they're constantly worried they're going to lose their job? They don't.

Jill Finlayson: So how do people recover and sort of reboot themselves when they're going to apply for a job in that situation?

Kat Kibben: That's a great question. I think the answer is probably a little bit different for everyone. The number one piece of advice I give everyone is to take at least one week of nothingness, to allow yourself space to just let it out, because if you go too fast, which again, personal experience here--

If you go too fast from a bad situation into the next one, I think you struggle to connect, to feel impactful, to feel like you're doing meaningful work. And so one, break. Number two, get really specific about relational indicators or anything that you kind of saw as your breaking point, and ask questions during the interview process about that.

Now, just to be very clear, often when I read a job posting and it gets a little too specific, I'm like, I know what happened here. It's the same thing as a dating profile, right. You're reading it and they're like, I won't date anyone who does this, this, this and this. And you're like, I know what happened in your last relationship.

We don't need to go there, but maybe you could ask questions like, how would you handle this scenario? to the manager. There, you get to ask a questions too, and we need to take more ownership of that opportunity to engage using questions like, on a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you in this? And it's just starting to get those indicators from the manager that help you. But again, you need the time off so it doesn't come across as emotionally charged questions.

Jill Finlayson: And a lot of people, of course, are changing jobs because they want to advance in their career. So nothing wrong with their current job. They just want to grow as a human being or grow into areas they're more excited about. How do you read between the lines to find the job that's the right fit for you?

Kat Kibben: Trying to narrow down the everyday activities. I think the unfortunate truth here is that the job description is often not the best source of information, and it's often our only source of information. And that's when some of the backchannel work helps

So maybe the job posting helps get you interested, and then your follow-up task would be kind of going to the LinkedIn profiles of the current person holding that role, or starting to investigate that team and getting just a little bit more information. It's so unfortunate, truly, that people don't know how to do these postings.

And it's even more unfortunate to me that we're starting to lean into AI to do this, because to me, having AI write your job posting is probably one of the biggest mistakes a company can make. And it's one of the easiest ways to use AI right now, but ultimately, I think it actually stands in the way of your ability to create enablement.

Jill Finlayson: So what happens when you use AI? You say, here's the job description, make it better, or write a job description to do X. What do you get from AI?

Kat Kibben: The most generic version of that role, and it is often not your job at all, right. Whenever I interview hiring managers, the first thing I tell them is the difference between my job postings and whatever a machine could spit out is, I'm going to tell the truth. And you are the source of truth, the hiring manager.

And so I'm not going to use AI to generate my first version, because then I have to remove all the lies, and that's very hard to do to remove all the exaggeration, to remove all the mandatory requirements that aren't applicable, to spill out all the parts that aren't real, especially for a recruiter who doesn't do the job every single day.

It would be in a much better position to talk to the hiring manager and pull quotes straight out of that conversation, ask really good questions and create the posting from their perspective, and edit down a transcript or use that transcript as part of the generative conversation, versus this generic world, because that's what creates the sea of sameness. I mean, it bothers me that I talk to companies every single day who tell me they want to stand out, and then they do the exact same thing everyone else is doing.

Jill Finlayson: What is the sea of sameness?

Kat Kibben: It's this interesting problem that's coming up in that if every company asks the AI to write a director of marketing role, and they copy and paste it into the posting, how do you stand out from the person next to you? Why would they choose you over their other role? We all talk about top talent, the most competitive talent landscape, and all these other buzzwords. How do you expect to be competitive if you're not even different, at least surface level?

Jill Finlayson: So people are using AI to apply. They're using AI to write their cover letter. They're using AI to match their resume to the job skills requirements. What impact is that having on their job chances, and what impact is that having on the recruiter?

Kat Kibben: I think this is a conversation that we're just starting to have in the world of HR and recruiting, is OK, so now I have AI that can take the assessment for you, AI that can write whatever writing sample you want in addition to those resumes and cover letters.

And I think HR is scared, because for the first time, this kind of Boolean, keyword-focused selection process doesn't work anymore, because you can plug in all the keywords. You know, I can say, write me a resume based on this job posting. It'll grab every keyword you want, and we can't keyword match anymore, so we have to contextualize and match. And that's what recruiters aren't good at right now.

They're very good at matching 1 to 1, but not contextualization. And it's a unique scenario. And I would tell any job seeker who's thinking about using AI for this, it's like, maybe that's a starting place, but it most surely is not your finished version.

Jill Finlayson: It's interesting. There was an application on a State Department program that was trying to find out how would you help women and girls in your country. And the applicants were from all around the world, and so English not being their first language, they of course would leverage ChatGPT.

And basically, every answer had the word "mosaic" in it. And they knew as soon as they saw the word "mosaic" that in fact, the applicant had used AI, and it kind of disqualified them, because again, it was generic. It wasn't specific. And so how do we ask better questions in the interview or on the job description itself?

Kat Kibben: That's exactly the thing people are trying to figure out, because I ran into one of the same scenarios. So it was a health care company that provides trans-specific health care. The first question they ask everyone is, why do you want to work with the trans community? And a friend of mine, she said they got 75 applications in about 24 hours, and over half had the exact same submission.

Jill Finlayson: Wow. So they didn't even customize it at that point.

Kat Kibben: Not even. They did not change one word about it. And so my advice is, again, I think it's a good place to get infrastructure. But you have to understand, everyone's going to say the exact same thing. And you also have to validate, because ChatGPT is a reflection of bias that exists in the country. So there's a lot of perspectives that will come out of ChatGPT that may not be your own, even, even about your own career. And while it might sound good, it is not good because it's not going to get you the result you want, which is the job.

Jill Finlayson: So what are we looking at? Is the resume a thing of the past, an artifact? Is the cover letter ever looked at? What do we need to be doing to get a job?

Kat Kibben: For me-- I'm so sorry to tell people this-- I've never read a cover letter unless it was a writing role, because to me, that's not a benchmark. If you do not spend at least 30% of your time writing reports, writing documents, et cetera, I don't want to see your cover letter. I don't care how you write, right? We're going to have email conversations back and forth, and that's probably the level of communication you need.

Many moons ago, I worked at a company that wanted to abolish the resume. It was a competitor to LinkedIn, and we had these online profiles. The reality is that the resume still exists because our technology still relies on its ability to use it. The technology that pretty much every HR department, every recruiting department in the world uses still, that's the only thing they know how to use.

And so to me, if I'm using the resume, it's like you need to take the generic version and then add your results, add your numbers, make it really specific to you and the work you've done, and the impact you've made. And it kind of goes back, right, impact to everyday activities, mandatory requirements. In the job posting, I need to be able to glance at your resume and understand the impact you made, the things you did every day, and the mandatory requirements that you meet.

Jill Finlayson: So how do you write about your impact better so that people like you who are doing the hiring or looking at these resumes for two seconds will see something that catches their eye?

Kat Kibben: Voice to text. So you need to add tone. And a lot of times, that's what's missing from the resume, and makes it look like everyone else's, even if you didn't use ChatGPT to generate it. And so what I tell people is, if you're struggling to say something or you're feeling that writer's block, where you're like, this doesn't sound professional enough, I need to remind you there's a person on the other side. And the person wants to feel like they know you.

And so the easiest way to add personality, to add your tone, is to literally pick up your phone and say it. I worked at a company where I did this. I helped this team do this. And then take that into ChatGPT and say, make this shorter, make this more specific. Say this in 10 words instead of 100. That's a really good use for AI, but having it write your first draft, in my opinion, is rarely a really good use.

Jill Finlayson: Like you said, giving it more specific information to start with is a better grounding than just giving it your resume. So LinkedIn has made a statement that they're helping recruiters by matching people, not by the resume, but by their skills. What do you think about this skills-focused matching?

Kat Kibben: I don't know if skills-based hiring is the equitable answer for what's next, because ultimately, what we're saying is, however you generated this keyword is the only definition of what that word means, and there is no universal language of work. The example I always like to use is "collaborative team player," because it's one of the most common phrases that's used in job postings.

Right now, I have a little search tool where I searched it this morning, 19,000 uses of the word "collaborative team player," OK. A collaborative team player to you and collaborative team player to me means something completely different. So on my team, we work totally autonomously.

You work whatever time you work, whenever you want. We just have deadlines. So that's what a collaborative team player means to me, is do your stuff on time. In most places, it doesn't look like that at all. It means showing up to the meeting. And because we don't have that universal definition of work, I don't think we can make this match. And ultimately, I think it creates more inequities, not fewer.

Jill Finlayson: Also, to your point is, what data is it trained on? I've heard that people who are veterans, who have been in the military and use military terminology to discuss the project management that they've done, or the logistics that they've managed, but it doesn't get even seen by the AI, because they use words that aren't the business terminology.

Kat Kibben: Exactly. There just is no universal language of work. There never has been, there never will be, because we all come from different places. And to me, the more valuable thing is experiences. The experiences you have had are another set of education, and it's something universal that people can understand. So I can say "collaborative team player," And that means one thing to you and one thing to me.

But if I say, you've worked on a team of five or more where you led team meetings, where you guided daily hustles and provided one-on-one feedback with every person on that team-- that is easy for you to say, yeah, I did that, or no, I didn't. When I say "five years collaborative team player," you're like, sure.

Jill Finlayson: So we know where you stand on years of experience. Where do you stand on requiring a bachelor's or a master's, or an MBA versus a master's of sociology? What do you think about these education credentials? Are they a good qualification?

Kat Kibben: No, I'm so sorry. I know I'm on an education podcast. I probably shouldn't be talking. But listen, this if you did not learn how to do your job at school, it is not a good requirement. So like my doctor, my lawyer, my accountant, please have a degree, all of you, because you learned how to do your job at school.

My marketers, my communications leaders, I can give you a laundry list of people. It doesn't align 1 to 1 to the role. I mean, I went to college and I learned how to do billboards and radio ads. And let me tell you how many times I've written either of those, because right after I left, it was .com, and we just went right into digital.

So that degree, yes, I have it. But does it help me do that marketing job more effectively? I don't know about that. And what's more disturbing to me is both the historical data and also the current data. So when you look back on job postings, you don't really see requirements for bachelor's degrees until about the '60s, specifically centered in the Southeast. I think it's pretty easy to hypothesize that we were using them as artificial barriers to keep people out, because they knew this community did not have broad access to education.

Fast forward to today. If you look at the statistics around who does not hold a college degree, you can very quickly hypothesize that we are still holding that line, even though it does not ultimately deliver either a more inclusive workplace, if that's your goal, or a more qualified one.

Jill Finlayson: So let's go to some final words of advice here. So let's take the different audiences. I'm looking for a job. What do I do when I look at that job description?

Kat Kibben: So I want you to pull the information down. I want you to put it into ChatGPT. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to ask ChatGPT a series of questions, questions like, what interview questions would someone ask based on this job posting? She asks, what does this person do every day? What is the impact of the work? Going back, what are the mandatory requirements?

Let ChatGPT tell you if that information is available and synthesize it for you. Then take that information as your preparation for the interview and also to prepare your resume based on that more simplified version. The other thing I would tell you is, plug it into a word cloud generator.

What I like about that is it just does a quick count, because often, if something is really important to the person on the other side, they will overemphasize it, and they'll use the key word over and over again. And so even with ChatGPT, if you say the same word over and over again, it'll pop up into your outcomes. So I would start there. Oh, and get really good at using LinkedIn.

Jill Finlayson: And what does it take to get really good at LinkedIn? What are we trying to learn?

Kat Kibben: I think you're trying to learn how to search on the back end and find people on LinkedIn, how to start conversations, and honestly, how to engage an audience. I think everyone should know how to do that, not just marketers or people who work in social media, because what ends up happening is when you're looking for your next job, you go back to LinkedIn, and you're looking for your next job, and you go back, and you're looking, right.

And you need a community there, because at a certain point in your career, I feel that you should have the network that you can ask your network instead of asking a job board. And in order to build that, it means building a lot of connections over time. So anyone you meet, you should send a LinkedIn connection. It was great to meet you. I want to learn from you.

Jill Finlayson: All right, let's look at the other side of the table. I'm the job description writer. So is that the HR person? Is that the hiring manager? And what can I think about when I'm putting together a job description?

Kat Kibben: So every company has a different process, which makes it equally complicated and inconsistent. So if you are writing a job posting, I would say the very first thing is to brainstorm the everyday activities of this person. Just sit there and write out what do they do every single day. From there, you could take those everyday activities and maybe you plug it into that free job title generator, and you see what job titles pop up.

You plug in the everyday activities and ask ChatGPT, what would be the mandatory requirements based on this. But always start by really defining the role, I think is a good place. And I'm a little biased, but maybe learn how to write a job post. And that's my specialty. And I have a free e-book you can do to take some of that, but make yourself really aware of the techniques that don't work, because what you know is probably part of that basket of things that just don't work. We've just always done it that way.

Jill Finlayson: And what is your hope for the future of work, the future of resumes and job applicant hiring matchups?

Kat Kibben: I truly hope we destroy the resume. I think the resume is standing between people and their ability to do work. And so what I want to see is a lot of growth in the assessment space, a lot of growth in the information space, because to me, it would create a baseline of knowledge. We would actually be able to build a lot on top of that.

And so when you went into a role, it would already know what your next four roles are, because we assessed you correctly and we know what your skills are, and the skills of the roles within our organization. And truly, I just want to remove the barriers, allow people access, get them there, because I think that's ultimately standing between our views and dreams of inclusive and equitable hiring places, is the resume, because it holds hundreds of years of bias.

Jill Finlayson: And do you think AI is going to play a role in filling this new gap?

Kat Kibben: I think it will. I am concerned about our ability to mitigate bias in that process, and so I'll be watching that for sure.

Jill Finlayson: Well, Thank you so much for joining us, Kat. I've really enjoyed our conversation.

Kat Kibben: Thank you for having me, Jill.

Jill Finlayson: And with that, I hope you have enjoyed this latest in a long series of podcasts that we'll be sending your way every month. Please share with friends and colleagues who may be interested in taking this Future of Work journey with us, and make sure to check out extension.berkeley.edu to find a variety of courses to help you thrive in this new working landscape. And to see what's coming up at EDGE in Tech, go ahead and visit edge.berkeley.edu.

Thanks so much for listening, and we'll be back next month with another look at the future of work. The Future of Work podcast is hosted by Jill Finlayson, produced by Sarah Benzuly, and edited by Matt DiPietro and Natalie Newman.

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