As part of the Stamford Partnership’s Tech Hub series, local business leaders and interested parties once again gathered at the Third Place for a discussion between experts in a critical industry. Half Full Brewing’s combination coworking space, event hub and tap room has been the preferred site for the monthly Fireside Chat series, where speakers on matters of business and local governance have a relaxed, free ranging conversation in front of a virtual fireplace.
The chat on June 8 was between Nolan Farris, the chief revenue officer, and Maggie Hulce, the executive vice president and general manager for enterprise, from Stamford-based Indeed, the job search and recruiting website.
The night’s event was also sponsored by Deloitte, the industry leading professional services network. Michael Griffiths, the principal and lead for learning consulting practice for Deloitte in North America, introduced Hulce and Farris after noting that in his role he oversees research into human capital trends.
“Under this topic of the ‘future of work’ we have had a lot of conversations,” Griffiths said, describing the rise of “workforce agency,” or the ability to make decisions about hours and location more generally as well as self-manage on many tasks, as being an increasingly sought-after quality in a workplace. He emphasized the value of conversations on the topic by those who know the trends in job searching the best before introducing Hulce and Farris.
Farris began by recounting his 14-year history with Indeed.
“I’m Employee 58,” he said, recalling that since that time not only had the company moved from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Stamford, but it expanded to more than 5,000 employees. Farris’ current responsibilities include overseeing all of the revenue generation teams, including sales, client success and scale of business solutions teams.
Hulce recalled her own career as well and noted that while she has only been with Indeed for about half as long as Farris, it has become her favorite place to work, eclipsing even her time at Google. Hulce surprised Farris with her first line of inquiry: what was his favorite part of being in the state.
“Well, Remo’s is pretty good,” he replied, a shout out to a popular local eatery. “It has a special place in my heart because my wife Mary was raised here and also has an MBA from UConn Stamford. So, when she finished class we would meet there.”
Farris and Hulce both discussed how important the move to Stamford was for the talent pool Indeed could pull from as it grew, which led them to discuss how the company is changing its own hiring processes in a rapidly changing field.
“As it relates to Indeed and this concept of skills-based versus job-based hiring, I think there’s a broad recognition of the mismatch between available jobs and the unemployed people that can fill those jobs,” Hulce said. “There are two open jobs for every unemployed person. There’s unprecedented broad recognition that we have to be focused on the skills people have and helping people augment those skills and making sure that you don’t overlook them for some other reason. So as an employer ourselves we have taken college degree requirements off of almost all our jobs.”
“We are increasingly trying to make our job descriptions, our hiring process more focused on the skills that are needed for success in the job and not only past experiences that is similar to it,” she added.
Hulce said that increasing automation in these job application processes, with an emphasis on shortening the lead time between qualifying for a job on the basis of skills and having an interview, was also a promising development.
Farris shared her excitement by stating, “Think about all that time spent going through a stack of resumes; it takes forever. Figuring out the top 15% that you want to contact, having to call them or email them, waiting for a response, trying to negotiate time when they can meet… so much time is spent on manual tasks of going through that process that we feel can be automate d, which dramatically improves the job seeker experience and the employer experience.”
