Ep. 1: Let’s Talk Human-First HR Tech with Bennett Sung

Full Transcript of my Let’s Talk Human-First Tech with Bennett Sung

Katrina Collier (00:00):
Bennett Sung, thank you so much for joining me. So of course you are quoted in The Robot-Proof Recruiter, first and second edition, I hasten to add. At the time that I quoted you this time on page 174, you were with Humanly.io, consulting to Humanly.io. And we were talking about Humanly is a unified conversational AI for recruiting platform that assists with everything from screening and scheduling engagement, reference checks, and candidate feedback. But what sets it apart is Humanly Voice, which acts like a flight recorder for the interview. And the AI interview assistant captures, transcribes and analyses each interview conversation, which you can then use to become more confident in making hiring decisions and overcome unconscious bias. Hopefully, it also works with stay and exit interviews. So I like that, which is very cool and leads me into my very first question.

Bennett Sung (00:51):
Sure.

Katrina Collier (00:52):
So how does your technology put the human first?

Bennett Sung (00:57):
The way Humanly puts the human first is really to enable hiring managers to be better. So for example, as the flight recorder or Humanly Voice looks at what’s happening inside the interview. We can start to take a look and track different communication behaviours, how fast you’re talking, how much interruptions the hiring manager and the candidate make up each other. But I think what’s most important as we start to look at kind of in aggregate, we start to look at things that really focus on key experiences that are probably making the interview not as fair as we all see it to be. For example, one of our customers, after a series of interviews for entry level engineer positions ended up realizing that female candidates were given 12 minutes less time to talk inside the interview over the male counterparts.

Katrina Collier (02:08):
Wow.

Bennett Sung (02:09):
So when we start to think about looking at-

Katrina Collier (02:15):
Bias.

Bennett Sung (02:15):
…what happened in those interviews, were the hiring managers late for the interview? Were they interrupting too much? And such, so there are so many different interesting behavioural elements that end up becoming a coach to the hiring manager-

Katrina Collier (02:35):
Absolutely.

Bennett Sung (02:35):
.. to the recruiters [inaudible 00:02:37] leader. How do we make hiring fairer? And that really is [inaudible 00:02:42] bringing the human into the recruiting process more.

Where does it save people time?

Katrina Collier (02:47):
Yeah. It sounds also like that would mean that they would save time, though. Surely is there’s greater consistency, does that help with that as well? We all want to save time.

Bennett Sung (02:55):
Time savings is a natural part. It’s really kind of, I think the baseline for any recruiting technology. In this situation, the way we’re saving time is that this interview AI assistant is also your note taker. How so when we also think about how the hiring manager can now focus on the candidate, what they’re saying, getting to know them, versus scribbling notes down. This note taker puts all of that information right inside your applicant tracking system or CRM. So that is another big time saver, right?

Katrina Collier (03:32):
Oh, I love that.

Bennett Sung (03:33):
It is one of the areas that … It’s not as, what I would say strategic, but it is a functional time saving value that we can continue to push forward on and really make hiring even more efficient. So it’s efficiency and fair, consistent processing.

Katrina Collier (03:52):
I love that. So my last curly question for you. Dun-dun-da!

When leaders are buying HR tech, what’s the number one mistake they should avoid, they need to stop?

Bennett Sung (04:06):
They need to make sure that their new HR technology investment integrates inside their existing workflows. There is really no intended reason why you should have to log in into multitudes of different systems.

Because when you think of the recruiting tech stack, it’s getting more complicated every day, right? This layer onto the applicant tracking system, you layer on CRM, you layer on chat bots, you layer on voice now. I mean, these are … How many different systems am I going to need to log into?

So integrating and looking at the integration experience and making sure that first and foremost you know what that experience looks like so that you can accommodate for any sort of change management. And in our situation, what we’re trying to do is minimise or eliminate any change management, because we’re just simply built into your existing platform.

Katrina Collier (05:08):
It’s there. You don’t have to open something else.

Bennett Sung (05:11):
It’s that’s just there, exactly.

Katrina Collier (05:14):
It’s like every time they say download another app, I’m like, “No, no.”

Bennett Sung (05:20):
If I was a Recruiter, hiring manager and I had download all these individual apps my phone will have at least [inaudible 00:05:28] pages.

Katrina Collier (05:30):
I would have trouble finding them.

Bennett Sung (05:32):
Yeah, and that’s just my work life and not my personal life. So it’s finding, striking the balance. It’s also realising that there is this necessary element. Go through what they call a design thinking session of how all these systems really work together, because that is the other element that will prohibit really getting full adoption, right?

Katrina Collier (05:56):
Absolutely.

Bennett Sung (05:56):
Integration is not only going to create the efficiency, it’s going to create much streamlined data and [inaudible 00:06:03] integrity, but most importantly it’s going to get everybody excited to want to use all of the tools because they’re so connected into each other and they don’t have to worry about it.

Katrina Collier (06:13):
Perfect. Now, if people want to know more about you or connect with you, what’s the best way to do that?

Bennett Sung (06:18):
The best way to do that is through Humanly.io, the website. There is a number of ways you can engage. We actually have a chat bot that will allow you to schedule time with the organisation. So go there and check out, just learn more about conversational AI and then at the same time book some time with Humanly.

Katrina Collier (06:39):
And you, if they want to connect with you personally, just LinkedIn?

Bennett Sung (06:42):
Connect with me on LinkedIn. [inaudible 00:06:49]. It is LinkedIn/in/bennettsung.

Katrina Collier (06:52):
Easy. Bennett Sung.

Bennett Sung (06:54):
Yeah, easy.

Katrina Collier (06:59):
Bennett Sung, thank you so much.

Bennett Sung (07:00):
Yes, anytime.