Fredrik Niemelä (Lead Tech Advisor at JobAgent) has a solid track record in development and technology in HR. He was one of the few who built Spotify from scratch and was employed as Product Development Director after being a doctoral student at KTH.
He has also been the architect behind Assessio’s platform Ascend and even managed to develop a Chinese equivalent of the dating app Tinder. For a number of years now, he has lived in Texas in the USA and helps JobAgent with architecture and strategic technical decisions. In early October, he visited the world’s largest conference in HR, namely HR-Tech in Las Vegas. Below is an account of everything from chatbots, AI, block-chain, candidate experience and whether JobAgent’s sharing service is truly unique or not.
HR-Tech in Las Vegas is the world’s largest conference in technology in HR. With over 500 exhibitors, it is known as “the industry’s annual meeting” with everything from large global companies to small fast start-ups.
Fredrik, tell us about how HR-Tech has changed in recent years?
– I would say that I experience a very positive development at HR-Tech. Let us take the test companies as examples. A few years ago, there were actually a lot of suppliers with, to say the least, dubious tests. Imagine personality type tests, with colors and other nonsense. They were there at the same time as good test companies with real science were also there and competed for the same audience. Last year, there were fewer junk test companies and this year I did not see a test company that did not seem to have good data and research behind it. It is a very gratifying development!
Fredrik Niemelä, Tech lead at JobAgent
The market demands more science and research, can you sum it up like that?
How do you mean? What are the negative consequences?
Okay, so more science seems to be a trend. What does it look like with other trends?
So chatbots are the black news when it comes to the bachelorette party experience?
– I really do not think it is the answer to the whole question of candidate experience, however, it is clear that it speeds up the process. At any time, around the clock, you can ask your chatbot about practical things and get answers at once. It gives you as a candidate a faster process because you do not have to wait and do not have to email or call.
That it would be more fun, I’m a little doubtful, but that may be my personal opinion in and of itself. But the very essence of user-friendliness is often about someone caring about you, that I should be seen as a candidate and not just be one in the crowd, or it should be the biggest contributing factor to candidate friendliness and it does not solve a problem.
But other buzz-words, like AI, is it over?
– No absolutely not! Last year at HR-tech, there was a lot about AI and also this year. Here I also see at least the beginning of the same scientific trend as with the test companies. Previously, when I asked companies at HR-Tech about their AI, I often received answers such as “You put data in here and on the other side, some form of decision support comes out”. When I then asked “yes but how ?!” then the answer became something cryptic about a black box filled with data or “we can not tell because it is trade secrets”.
Of course, there are companies that say the same thing this year as well, but the majority gave very good and detailed answers on how their AI works. But AI is difficult to navigate because it can actually be difficult to explain even if it works. As a rule of thumb, you can say that if you can not explain how your AI works, there is a fairly high risk that it does not work.
Okay the last buzz word; block-chain, what do you say about that?
– A few years ago, there was a lot of talk about using block-chain in various HR processes. But almost all those discussions fell silent and today you hear it very rarely. If you hear blockchain in HR, it’s probably just a marketing pitch.
Of course, there are companies that say the same thing this year as well, but the majority gave very good and detailed answers on how their AI works. But AI is difficult to navigate because it can actually be difficult to explain even if it works. As a rule of thumb, you can say that if you can not explain how your AI works, there is a fairly high risk that it does not work.
I do not agree, why is block-chain difficult in HR?
– In HR, for example, people have been waiting and hoping for quite a long time for a verified version of LinkedIn. Imagine a copy of LinkedIn but where you can guarantee that the information is true and correct. Then you might think that block-chain solves that question because the information is verified and can not be changed. But is it really verified? How do we verify it? “Who watches the watchmen?” That part seems to be skipped / missed in the HR applications of block-chain that I have seen so far.
Another issue is also the GDPR. A user who suddenly wants to delete their data cannot do so because it is in a block chain. I have a hard time imagining that EU legislation agrees that “yes, because you agreed to have your data in a block-chain, you can not delete it”, but we will see what happens. In any case, I would absolutely not want to be the first with a blockchain for HR in a GDPR country. Of course, there are companies that say the same thing this year as well, but the majority gave very good and detailed answers on how their AI works. But AI is difficult to navigate because it can actually be difficult to explain even if it works. As a rule of thumb, you can say that if you can not explain how your AI works, there is a fairly high risk that it does not work.
JobAgent then, we are building a sharing service in recruitment, is there anything similar out there on the big global stage in HR-tech?
– Actually, JobAgent’s platform solves two problems “How do I find the right candidates to hire?” and “How do we best help the candidate?”. The first question “How do I find the right candidates to hire?” this is nothing new. Lots of companies say that they have the best candidates, or large databases with a lot of people in and so on. But the second question; “How do we best help the candidate?” – it’s unique. There are very few companies that actually focus as much on the bachelor experience as JobAgent does, and that also do it in a different way. Often when you talk about a bachelor’s experience in HR, you still do it from a recruiter perspective. It is emphasized that this process is so quick to respond to and this is how we reduce the risk of candidates dropping out of the process and so on.
But what is the fastest way to do a process? Well, you’ve already done it. What is the fastest way to answer a test? Well, you already have your results saved. Because JobAgent turns the process around and lets candidates decide for themselves who will have access to their data based on their criteria, this is something new. So the pitch holds up very well, but it is important to point out that this is built with the candidate as a starting point. The candidate is the one who decides and can share his data on his terms. Based on my observations on HR-Tech, there is no one who does this in that way, neither this year nor earlier. Of course, there are companies that say the same thing this year as well, but the majority gave very good and detailed answers on how their AI works. But AI is difficult to navigate because it can actually be difficult to explain even if it works. As a rule of thumb, you can say that if you can not explain how your AI works, there is a fairly high risk that it does not work.
