---
title: "Turning Rejections Into Opportunities"
episode: 170
date: 2025-08-07
guest: "C. Guz"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/170-turning-rejections-into-opportunities
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-170/audio.mp3
---

# Turning Rejections Into Opportunities

Joanne Lockwood is joined by entrepreneur and job seeker C. Guz to unpack what happens when recruitment becomes a system designed to reject rather than to select. Drawing on C’s experience of receiving over 13,000 rejections and navigating a long period of unemployment, they explore how repeated knockbacks can erode trust and confidence—and how those experiences can be channelled into changing the way hiring works. Together, they examine the mechanics that shape candidate experience at scale: CVs that strip out context, applicant tracking systems and filtering that drop people through the cracks, ghosting and poor communication, and the risk-averse behaviours that lead to longer, more burdensome hiring processes. They discuss why employer brand is inseparable from candidate experience, and how transparency—about stages, expectations and feedback—can increase psychological safety and reduce wasted time for everyone. The conversation also addresses the ethics and limitations of AI in hiring, including automation on both sides, hallucinations and exaggeration, and why human judgement and dignity still matter. C shares the thinking behind her platform Octopus, which uses a role-specific pre-interview to gather more useful data than a CV and provide candidates with actionable feedback. The episode leaves listeners with practical reflections on rebuilding trust, human connection and inclusion in modern recruitment.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome
- 01:30 — From Doubt to Purposeful Responsibility
- 08:56 — Importance of Employer Branding
- 13:27 — Johnson & Partners' Transparent Hiring Process
- 19:02 — Modern Recruitment: Assessing Practical Problem-Solving
- 22:01 — Job Mindset Changes Approach
- 29:24 — Optimise Candidate Experience, Reduce Costs
- 34:03 — Contact Hiring Manager Directly
- 42:11 — Seeking Genuine, Exceptional Candidates
- 49:12 — Balancing Structure and Flexibility
- 50:40 — Balancing Specialisation and Flexibility
- 01:00:59 — Bridging Interview and Job Performance
- 01:02:55 — Octopus: Your Text-Based Interview Ally

## Key takeaways

- What it means to turn personal and systemic rejection into a catalyst for entrepreneurial action and advocacy in recruitment.
- The hidden costs to employer brand and retention when candidate experiences are overlooked or mishandled.
- How technology, automation, and AI are shaping the future of recruitment—both the promise and perils.
- Why actionable data and structured feedback are essential for reducing bias and fostering a truly inclusive selection process.
- The shortcomings of the traditional CV and why behavioural and contextual insights are far more predictive of potential.
- Strategies for embedding transparency, psychological safety, and trust throughout each stage of hiring.
- The value of reimagining recruitment as a true partnership—one that respects and empowers both candidates and employers.

## FAQs

### What is the central theme of this episode?

The episode explores how rejections in the job search process can be reframed as opportunities for personal growth and systemic improvement. It particularly focuses on humanising recruitment, building trust between candidates and employers, and creating more inclusive hiring practices.

### Who are the guest and host featured in this episode?

Joanne Lockwood (she/her), Host of Inclusion Bites, interviews C. Guz (she/her), a female entrepreneur and job seeker who is passionate about transforming setbacks into empowerment through advocating for inclusive recruitment practices.

### Why does C. Guz believe the recruitment process feels inhumane for many candidates?

C. Guz cites her own experience with over 13,000 rejections and an extended period of unemployment, highlighting the widespread feelings of degradation, invisibility, and lack of feedback. She points out that traditional processes often reduce candidates to data points, missing their unique value, context, and potential.

### What are the key problems with traditional CV/resume-based recruitment?

Both Joanne and C. Guz argue that CVs are overly historic and do not convey a candidate’s true personality, potential, or how they might approach future workplace challenges. The conversation critiques the subjectivity, lack of standardisation, and over-reliance on paper-based or keyword-driven sifting methods that favour superficial filtering over genuine connection and capability assessment.

### How does candidate experience impact employer brand and long-term business outcomes?

Negative candidate experiences, especially lack of feedback and impersonal rejection, can erode trust and damage an employer’s reputation. The episode references research indicating candidate experience is a strong predictor of retention and growth. Candidates who feel valued, prepared, and respected are more likely to become loyal employees and brand advocates.

### What practical steps can organisations take to create a more candidate-centric process?

Cultivate transparency around hiring stages, interview structure, and criteria. 
Offer real testimonials and clear, mission-driven information on careers pages. 
Prepare candidates by sharing interview formats and expectations in advance. 
Use structured interview questions oriented towards actual workplace scenarios and potential. 
Provide feedback to all candidates, not only those who succeed. 
Recognise the diversity of approaches and learning needs in the candidate pool, particularly for neurodivergent individuals.

## Transcript

C. Guz: Foreign.

Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world? Remember, everyone not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo and share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. Today is episode 170 with the title Turning Rejections Into Opportunities, and I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome C Guz. C is a female entrepreneur and job seeker who has turned her own experiences with rejection into a mission to humanise recruitment and make the hiring process more inclusive for all. And when I asked C to describe her superpower, she said it is transforming setbacks into empowerment by advocating for inclusive recruitment practises that allow everyone to thrive. Hello, Si. Welcome to the show. Hello,

C. Guz: Joanne. It's so nice to be here and so, so nice to be doing this with you. I'm. I'm glad I actually pushed record

Joanne Lockwood: on this episode because we were chatting away, we were wasting all this fabulous material, so. Brilliant. So, yeah, we've got loads of stuff for our guests to listen to today, so, you see, you said when we were chatting away, you're in Turkey, is that right? Whereabouts in Turkey? Whereabouts in. I don't know it that well. I know Bodrum probably is probably about it. Currently in Istanbul, commonly known as, you

C. Guz: know, the Constantinople, the city with two coasts. So that's where I was born and raised then. Wow. Because Turkey is a

Joanne Lockwood: interesting country because it's a bit Mediterranean, it's almost a bit African, it's almost a bit Asian, almost a bit European. It's kind of on that really sort of strange gateway zone, isn't it? I'd

C. Guz: say so, but I personally never found my belonging here. And that's also, you know, what eventually led me to, you know, seeking these global doors and opportunities. So, you know, like

Joanne Lockwood: me, actually, you know, you faced rejections in your job search and so how did you turn those kind of rejections and channel those into kind of a An entrepreneurial spirit. How do you humanise recruitment? Absolutely. That's a great question. Thank you

C. Guz: so much. Accidentally, I think I've been studying the whole space for the last eight years and I initially didn't really mean to. I was a very young person, young professional, looking to get opportunities, get the right mentorship. And then the last five years for me has been really difficult because I got more than 13,000 rejections. And that meant like slap on the wrist, a kick on the face. But that eventually made me navigate a 10 month of unemployment period where the financial insecurity was at an all time low, at an all time high. And essentially I looked at everything that I was navigating and how degraded, you know, unqualified I felt. And it felt like as if I am totally useless, as if I cannot achieve nothing. Um, and the job market was really like, you know, transforming when I was an undergraduate. And then when I graduated, it just became a whole chaos with the layoffs and, and the economy, inflations and everything. So in that 10 months, what I realised is, you know what? See, I said to myself, millions of people are going through the same thing today and you see a solution. If you do not act on this solution, then you're not responsible, you're not fulfilling your responsibility and you're, you know, you are not doing what it needs to be done. And if you don't do it, then no one will do it. And can you really live with yourself? You know, after five, 10 years, the solution does not exist and these people are going through the same chaos just because you were ignorant. And then that was a spark that basically fueled everything. And I said, you know what? This is not going to work. And event. Initially it was more the candid experience. My problem was because the inhumanity really, really bothered. But then when I had to recruit for my own startup, I had 2,000 resumes in front of me. And I remember looking at those resumes and being like, how do I understand who I should interview Those tell me nothing about who a person is. It was in 2019, I had to create my first resume and I remember looking at that one pager when it was done and I hated it. It was almost like, I'm going to destroy you. You're telling nothing about me to that employer. You're not telling the value that I can bring, how much of an asset can be. You're reducing me to these data points that don't actually translate to business outcomes, to actionable data, and you also don't know the contextual information about how I was able to like achieve those goals in the organisations that I've supported in. So I've always had a problem with resume ever since I created one. And I also had these experiences where I was constantly rejected and ghosting is also like a must. So I found myself just holistically picturing what is actually going on in each of those steps and then actually living them and then seeing what would be a better way so that we can actually build the bridge that should have existed, all of them. And that's really my motivation. And I was lucky to meet my co founder who's a technical end of things and I'm so lucky because he has been the co founder that I always dreamed of that I would have. Yeah, great. What

Joanne Lockwood: you're saying that candidate experience sucks, doesn't it? I've never had a great candid experience yet. I'm not saying never, but yet not the one that jumps out to me. But as you, as you pointed out there that you know, in your own startup you had a thousand, two thousand applicants. It's hard to be specific and give great feedback to 2000 people or whatever it is. And we think about large organisations who are hiring at scale, big, well known brands, they just, they just get inundated. So the first sift that, that first gatekeeping is almost like a instant rejection. You're lucky if you get that within an hour or you never get it at all. So how can we start thinking in a more candidate centric way? Because studies have shown that often candidates are also clients and customers. So if we don't treat our candidates right, that can damage our brand, can't it? Absolutely. I love how you put

C. Guz: it. And there was a quote by a Forbes HR council member who says that we have built our current recruitment tools to reject candidates and not to select them. And having been a recruiter, recruiter, like today for example, when I talk to recruiters and employers and asking if they're currently posting their jobs, they're telling me no and particularly they're not posting on LinkedIn. LinkedIn used to be an asset for those people, but now it's not because they're telling me, you know, if I do well, I'm just going to get spam applications and people who haven't read my job descriptions don't meet the qualification and I'm just going to be wasting my time there. When you're a recruiter, when you see an applicant tracking system, it's really true, like you're trying to get rid of the unqualified pipeline as fast as possible. And that means a lot of people are falling through the cracks. And again, like, the get rid doesn't mean that you're trying to sort of, you know, be inhumane in that process. But you're a recruiter. Like, imagine that you're going after or have two roles that you're hiring for. Let's say you're hiring for a software engineer and a product manager. And if you're getting 500 applications for each of them, what you're going to do, you're going to use filtering, keyword search, boolean. That's what we were taught to do, that's how the systems work. But if I don't know how to format my resume, like I have experienced this and I've also seen this happening. Hiring managers look at a resume format of resume and they tell me, no, there is no way that I'm gonna allow that candidate to be moved forward in the process. Resumes are not standardised. You know, like, without the standardisation, how do you compare, like apples to, you know, pears or apples to cherries? And essentially that's, that's what we're trying to do. The only thing that we have been focusing on is actually the actionable data part, which resumes were supposed to focus on, but again, missing a lot of contextual information, behavioural information and hundreds of more data points that I can hear count. So coming back to the employer brand, I mean, you go to a Glassdoor page and now candidates are talking about their interview experiences openly. If you've interviewed in a company, candidate has now become a YouTuber and they're going to be publicly speaking about the experience, experiences that they just had. Your employers, first, sorry, employers are advocates for you, but then the second advocates for your brand identity. Your employer brand is candidates. And if you don't value those people, then they're going to talk about it. Let's say, you know, you're a McKinsey and you had this horrible experience with McKinsey as a candidate, that candidate is going to be talking to their closest circle and now they are going to think twice when they're applying to McKinsey, no matter how good the brand is, because it really is based on trust. And if you don't build that trust effectively right in the beginning, if you don't value those candidates, then those candidates are not going to be applying to you. So you're going to be starting to miss out on the top talent in the market and your competitors would get them just because they Care just because they're creating those right. Candid experiences. And let me give you another data here. So the researchers looked at what really predicts retention and growth after those candidates are hired. And candidate experience is the core and you know, it's predicted by 90% of HR people that actually says candidate experience is a core predictor of retention and growth. And if you don't nail that, then how can you expect to retain those, you know, candidates that you hire as employees? Like it's a way to build trust. It's to build a way to build that commitment, to show this is how it's like when you become an employee with us, when you're an employee with us. And if you're saying that this is how it looks like and we won't care about you when you're an employee, then how as a potential employee, I can build a trust that you will train me with the right resources, that you will create the right environment for me to work in, that you will create growth opportunities for me, that I will be compensated fairly. You're shaking all of these foundations before they are even built if you don't have the right candidate experience. So that's essentially how it translates to, you know, the dignity influences on your employer brand. You mentioned something in there,

Joanne Lockwood: trust. And I'm, I'm a great advocate for trust has to be inherent in the process. We talk about psychological safety. There has to be psychological safety in the hiring process, in the candidate experience as well. The problem is you said this when you were talking about your own application journey. All Those thousands of CVs, thousands of applications you made, you got to the end in that process and you had zero faith or trust in the system. That almost like why should I bother submitting another application? Because you had been so bruised and damaged by the past experience, you think, well, this is just pointless doing it. So your trust was at an all time low, that you were going to be given a fair hearing, treated fairly, whatever it was. So as recruiters, whether you're agency, RPO or in house, how could you reach out and bring that trust in back into the process? So it really starts

C. Guz: with the first experience, like in your career space probably is the first place that the candidate is going to look at like a day in life, how the culture looks like. And you shouldn't use like buzzwords. It's not about for example, like leadership, but what that leadership means to you. For example, maybe you believe leadership should be shared or how, you know, how do you empower those people in your Organisations and real time testimonials of them, like people hire people. That's something that we've forgotten in the process and we have to bring this back. And starting from that careers page, everything on the website has to be optimised. You have to position yourself as, you know, answering why I should work for you, why I should work with you, what exciting mission are you working on that I should get excited about? And then when I scroll through the caregivers page, I should be able to see the growth opportunities that are waiting for me. And not only that, this is only done by so many, few employers. For example, I think Johnson and Partners in the uk, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing their name correctly, but they're a retail brand and they have been the most transparent organisation that basically said, these are the stages that are waiting for you, these are the kind of questions that you will be asked and in each step, this is the person you will be speaking to. And to succeed, these are the things that we will be looking out for. Now you're prepared, but many of the interviews don't prepare organisations and candidates for this. So candidates don't have the data. Like you get an interview request. Why do you want to talk to me? Is this a first hiring manager interview? Is a recruiter going to be talking to me like, what am I asked to, like, answer? Am I asked to just, you know, participate in a live case study that I don't know nothing about and then I find out on the spot and then I'm asked to say submit something in an hour and I know that's just impossible. So candidates are set to fail, almost like you're setting your candidates to fail, which is so ironic. And then the job description, like, the job description is not only something that shows what the day to day looks like and what you expect from that candidate, from that potential employee to achieve, but also a way to position how it is like to work for you. Like the mission that you're passionate about, the impact that you've created. How many organisations have you helped? You know, for example, for us it's candidate experiences, it's the brands that we're able to help them humanise recruitment. Our change makers, our partners, show how that narrative looks like, like give them an insider perspective. You know something that's really ironic, when I got those 2,000 resumes as a startup, as a recruiter for the first time, in my first startup, we had an employer brand before the product itself, before an mvp, we were working from Five different time zones. It was, it was a mess. But the way that we positioned our vision resonated so deeply with people that they went on and apply and that was not it. After they applied, I actually had a 20% like of the people filling out an eight section form that I have prepared to be able to assess candidates. And that process look entirely different from any of the interview processes that I've been to because I couldn't find any of those answers in the resumes. Then more, you know, around 200 people actually went on and completed that. And one person gave me this feedback that it actually took them four hours to complete that form. And the reason is it's not because it was that long, but it's because people were not used to being given that space, that opportunity. The eight section forum looked like, okay, like I see that you're a current student or a mid level, like professional, but what do you want to do? Like it was more reflective. How can I support you? What are the areas that you want to grow in? What are your skill sets like? You know, having people break down themselves as a spot and it was a reflective opportunity for them that many of those, you know, people who worked with me were able to understand what kind of a career that they wanted to pursue. And I'm going to tell this as a recruiter. Majority of the people, especially juniors and even middles, they don't know what they want. And it's your opportunity to help them reflect to, you know, have a more coaching style of interview where they're able to understand this because then you hire them and then they realise that job is not right for them. So help them understand. We treated those interview processes as transactional and as an interrogation, you know, sort of, you know, model where the hierarchy is always, I as a recruiter have, you know, the upper hand until the candidate gets to the point of salary and then things change. But it is a partnership. I, as a recruiter am assessing a potential employee that I should be excited for the hiring manager that I'm supporting to, you know, to be working with. I am assessing that fit. And as a recruiter, focusing on a strategy, the more you work with that hiring manager, if you're for example, not the more that you understand their expectations, the more you understand what kind of a leader, a mentor that person would be. So now you're hiring their report. Everything really is based on that human connection. And then we're trying to remove those human loops from the process and then automate them so humans are not able to make the right hiring decisions. How can AI make the right hiring decisions if you remove human from the process? So, long story short, it's really about creating that insider perspective. How is it like working for your employer, working for your organisation? And as a recruiter, how has your experience been like? All these things are very, very simple and easy to do. It takes a minute to add that something in, but it makes all the difference. And candidates really feel like there is a human behind the keyboard who will be assessing their application. Going back to what you're saying

Joanne Lockwood: there about you get the resume, the CV in and you're trying to extract this data and you're saying it's not geared up to actually give you the soul or the personality or the heart of that individual, which is what we really ideally want to be. Hiring people, not paper, not numbers. I always think about the CV is very historical. It's a Wikipedia. It's not saying anything about you. We've kind of evolved the CV to be this master document of my life. This is what I've done. I'm a great believer in not how did you questions or what have you done questions. It's what would you do? How would you approach this? Or what's your thinking behind this scenario? Which the CV doesn't show you? Which is why a lot more modern recruitment practises anonymizing. They're using workplace samples, they're using five or six how would you questions which actually require more effort from the candidate because they can't just bombard you with their CV on auto, they have to actually look at these questions now. And that can actually filter candidates out because. Oh, that's too difficult. That's too difficult. But if you actually put the effort into crafting that great workplace sample, how would you tackle this challenging situation? How would you tackle the data centre just gone down and you've got customers screaming at you. How would you handle that situation? What would you do first? That's for getting into the mindset of the candidate and then we can see what a valuable resource they would be in a crisis, in a. In a team environment, what their personality is, isn't it? That's what we want to find out. I love that. And that

C. Guz: made me. That brings me to this. Like psychometric assessments that enterprises leverage really heavily and then cannot feel insecure at that point because they're thinking there is a behavioural example that they're asking to answer. For example, you know, your colleague just stole something from the office, what would you do? And then there Are like four different like, answers to that. Like, do you protect your, you know, colleague because they're your colleague and you stand with them? Do you report that to the hr? Do you, like, ask them to, you know, return that? All of these things say something about your behavioural characteristics, your personality. But these tests are not, you know, leveraged in a way that creates psychological safety for a candidate. Because you're standing in front of that screen and you're thinking to yourself, what is the right answer? Like, because there are different right answers in that particular situation. Maybe the employer is trying to assess your loyalty there, maybe they're looking for your, like, work ethics. If you're assessing loyalty, then you should ideally support your colleague who stole something from the organisation. But from the business perspective you shouldn't do that, but you don't know what they're assessing. So the psychological safety, I think is, is really making things difficult for the candidate. Like, I understand that I'm being assessed right now, but what are you really looking to get from me? Like, what is it that you're really assessing? And I understand all these like, cheating measures and sort of really trying to create an unbiased environment from a psychological experimenting perspective. And that's where we took these like, studies from. Essentially all these psychometric assessment softwares that you see now, they were one psychological experiments and essentially we learned from that data and now we basically productize them. But I think that candidates are not feeling safe with that and it's, it's, it's not happening. I think it's a bit like

Joanne Lockwood: when you use ChatGPT or an AI system. What you do at the beginning is you say you are an expert this and your role is to design that. When you do the psychometric test is you think, well, what am I applying for? I'm applying to be a programmer, a coder, therefore I'm going to put my head in that mode. If you're hiring me to be head of security or HR or audit, then I'll have a different answer because, you know, you want me to grass up your teammate. You want to be ultimately security focused, company focused, but if you're in a small team, you want this person to maybe talk to the person that's committed the wrongdoing and say, look, you really shouldn't have done that. I don't want to be the one that grasses you up. Why don't you go and hand it back or be honest yourself and coach them into that without colluding. So you want a different approach, so you just Got to put your head in the mind of, of the job you're applying for. And you could. People say you can't cheat these systems, but I think if you've, if you've got enough intelligence, you can move your brain into a space where you're thinking and acting in the model. You have to act. So yeah, and I think what we're doing is we're almost forcing people to act and we talk about bring your whole self to work. You don't actually want my whole self. You want this narrow bit that fits into your definition.

C. Guz: Yeah, fully agree. And like recruiters are essentially like prone to look for red flags rather than, you know, the things that they like about the candidate that helps them move to, to the next stage.

Joanne Lockwood: It's down to risk though, isn't it, the recruiter, if it can. If the recruiter's got two good candidates, it will come down to which one am I most comfortable, which one is least risk. And that is often a bias. It's that gut feel, it's that spider sense. Oh, I just feel it. You rub the paper, you go, this candidate just feels better to me. For whatever reason, all those biases come out, don't they? So we have to recognise that that personal bias has a huge influence on two identical candidates or even two candidates that are very close. You make a, I can't take the risk. If I hire this person, it goes wrong, people are gonna blame me. People are self protectionist as well. It's human nature. Yeah, yeah. But I think

C. Guz: that again, like it comes back to what we evolve recruitment into. And that has become today, unfortunately, rejecting candidates because like if 500 people are applying, you have one opening. It's really, really, really difficult to get to that top 10 when you're able to like say, okay, now it's the top five and top two. And then you also have to like have candidates, you have to, you know, keep them waiting on the sign because maybe someone will reject the offer. And now you have to be like thinking about your next move as a recruiter. But I think like recruitment has been evolved in a way that something that this candidate does is right and wrong. But I think that it should be focusing on the differences, like how would this candidate think about the situation? And maybe their way of thinking is particularly right for a company that is in a, in a different stage than ours. And that's completely okay. If you think that is, then, then you know, you have to give them the feedback and that would be really helpful to them so that they can go out and seek the right jobs for them. But going back to iOS, you need data. There is nothing in the process that is removing those biases. Like we have software today that removes for example, like the names of the candidates and like the contact information. We had the DEI software that focused on reporting measures. So it was more like do you want more females in your organisation now or do you want more diversity? And diversity was diversity in a way that it was healthy, but it was more like, hey, this, you know, Mr. Government, this is the type of employees I hire now, you know, like give me more funds. And I don't think that that's, that's the right way to go about diversity. Inclusion has to be, you know, for all the candidates that you're putting in the process for. And if, for example, I'm a neurodiverse candidate, I don't always do well in the interview. My brain works differently and recruiter can say that my thoughts are unstructured, I don't know what I'm talking about. And for example, it is on you to like set those candidates for success, like send them the questions that you want to ask in advance and then the candidate could then have the risk basically to, you know, read things from ChatGPT. And we have things that are happening, but the candidates are doing this because their trust is entirely gone in recruiters. Like we're talking to people today and they're rather wanting to be assessed by an AI than a recruiter because those recruiters are making them go through like horrible candid experiences. And I think that's a pledge that we all have to take. Like, you know what, I understand that things have been really hard, but to rebuild this trust we have to work together. And I think that that's, that's really how things can move forward. Because I cannot be like these people are adults. When you look at it like the anti cheating measures and tracking softwares to me feels just utterly dystopian. And I personally don't want them in my hiring process because I, if I don't trust my candidate and they know that I don't trust them, how can you empower them as employees to do what's right when push comes down the show, when they need to take an incentive, macromanagement doesn't lead to success. We all know this. And then the question all comes to like remote work and on site and everything else, but I don't think that's the way to go. So we have to focus on rebuilding that trust. I think to overcome Those biases.

Joanne Lockwood: I used to do a lot of work with smart recruiters. I went to a lot of their conferences, spoke at a lot of their conferences. Pre Covid I got to know their founder and CEO Jerome quite well and he talks about these three dimensions of hiring success as he would put it. So you've got the cost per hire, the hiring velocity and the candidate experience and they can't all be high. Sorry, you can't have. You've got to balance those. If you want great candidate experience, you can't do it cheaply. If you want higher velocity at a pace, you can't do it cheaply without sacrificing candidate experience. So you've got that three legged stool. If you're not careful, what you end up doing is trading off for speed and velocity because you've got empty seat costs, you've got need to fill that vacancy. Therefore you're not going to think about diverse hiring best practise because you've got to get somebody in that chair. You know, you know you've got a three month lead time once you've made the offer and you want. So basically this is a six month hiring hiring cycle and you want someone now. So you can't do it cheap, you can't, you know, you can't do it quick, you can't do it take your time, do it properly. You can do experiences going to be rubbish because you're just firing people in, filling them up and you just kind of pick what you've got. So how do you balance those things and actually which is the most important candidate experience, cost per hire or velocity? Which one do you sacrifice or should you? I think that it's not the question of a

C. Guz: sacrifice, but I think these things are interconnected. Like this is a system that you're talking about and I think that if you nail candidate experience then essentially you're reducing your cost for all things involved. And the reason is because you're attracting the right candidates for you because those candidates are essentially pre qualifying themselves and they now know what kind of an organisation that they will be working in. So you're really getting engaged candidates which essentially makes you not repeat the hiring process over again and basically double your hiring costs. So when investing your in your candidate experience, you're actually fixing all of them in terms of the velocity. I think that really depends on what kind of a role that you're hiring for. But every role like should look different. What kind of a case study will you be like leveraging for example, because you also need to, to focus on how to understand how to candidate things but without, you know, basically making them do unpaid labour, which is, which is a massive like concern in candidates today. So maybe you compensate those case studies that might be, you know, costly but then you basically say, you know what, I'm gonna send only to like the 10 candidates that I know who might be qualified for the position. I think that investing in candidate experience makes you attract the right candidates and those right candidates are now engaged. So now you are able to move much faster because you're in attracting them to your inbound. So this means that you don't have to go out and seek those candidates on LinkedIn, message them and outreach. It really takes so much time and even recruiters get ghosted here. Like ghosting is not just for candidates at this point. Candidates also as a response can try to like ghost recruiters because of what is going on in the current job market. So I think that candidate experience ultimately reduces your costs. But if you like treat it right, if you don't understand how candid experience is positioned within your greater hiring strategy and how the hiring experience will look like and how different stages will basically need different stakeholders to engage. For example, maybe a hiring manager did like sends to send the feedback, needs to send the feedback or a recruiter needs to collaborate with another recruiter. Maybe there is a decision making. So if you structure those and essentially you will be able to move much faster, much faster in this process. But again I think that candid experience is not costly as people think. Writing that one line of this is what our culture looks like in a day to day. You know, we for example, like describe someone's day to day. Like I wake up, I get my coffee, I start my day in xyz, where are they working from? Maybe you are like giving like remote work opportunities. So share their real life experiences of a successful employee profile so that the candidate can see, well I'm represented there or not represented there. So the people who actually read your job descriptions will be resonating with that and essentially they will be the ones who apply and you will be reducing on all costs included. Like you don't need to invest in a software to do this. So I really think that it's really about focusing on maintaining that human connection and it is not as costly as you think and you really don't need to invest in a specialist software, especially if you're a small organisation. What we talk about here is it's the early stage

Joanne Lockwood: of the sift, it's the talent attraction Element, the employer brand, making sure that people resonate with you. Do the data gathering and then we're doing the long list, down to the short list of 10 candidates. We haven't actually met these people yet, have we really, in most of these cases. And I'm a great believer when I'm a candidate, I just want to meet you. Get me off of the paper, get me off of the, off of the, the ats, into your face. Because I could, I know I can sell myself, I can smile, I can engage, I can adapt, I can be a chameleon around what you need face to face. But if I'm, if I'm trying to argue on a bit of paper, that's not me, I can't, I'm not interested. I want the human connection. So how do we give candidates more face to face time without it being burdensome? Because as you say, you see horror stories of organisations that get people in for 10 interviews. They want you to do this presentation, they want you to do this work summary, they want you to write an application or design something for them. Blimey, I'm doing all this work. And then you get this feeling that they're actually using you as a prototype. If you're marketing, they want to see who's got the best marketing idea. And even though they don't hire, they still pinch your idea. So people are worried about their own intellectual property at this stage as well, aren't they? I think

C. Guz: the best thing that you can do is actually find out who you will be working with and then reach out to that person directly. But then like, for example, as a recruiter, you will get a lot of messages and I don't think that going to the recruiter will still like get you on, on the top of the pile. A recruiter won't remember each of the few thousand candidates who applied. But message the recruiter, yes, they will go out and check with you, but they might not be able to assess your competency because you have to remember that a recruiter is not a specialist. So if I'm helping the, let's say, lead product manager hire an associate product manager. I have not been a product manager myself and as much as I can talk to the like hiring manager, I still don't have the nuances of what they're seeking. So go directly to the hiring manager saying, hey, I've applied, I'm really excited because your mission really resonates with me or the product that you're working really relates to my experiences or the areas that I Want to grow. Here are some of the things that I've achieved and I would be really grateful for a response or basically directly going to that person who you will be meeting with. If you're involved, then if they like it, then you basically will get an interview and hiring manager will be the one to prompt it. In the current process, unfortunately, this is the shortest cut, the shortest pathway. This is not ideal, absolutely not ideal. Especially if a load of thousand candidates in the pipeline end up doing this. So you really have to like, mindful about the message that you're writing and you should give them actionable data. Like as a candidate, you have to remember that the employer is looking for actionable data. What makes you the right fit for that position? And you know, how do you become that successful employee profile? I think that's really important. And don't be like forceful in your messages, like that's, that's not going to leave a good impression. Or don't tell the recruiter, hey, you haven't like checked my response in like two weeks. The recruiter is probably drowning in applications. No recruiter wants to leave the messages unanswered or leave the applications unanswered. But sometimes they're stuck because the hiring manager says, you know what, I need a week because I have X, Y, Z to finish in my current operations. So the hiring process extends for another week and then another week. The recruiter is really the frontline person here who doesn't have much control in, you know, the internal operations, but she is the one, or he is the one that is representing whatever that is going on and maintaining those communication processes with you. But we know that in big

Joanne Lockwood: organisations, suddenly that role goes on hold, the project gets cancelled, or there's another thing going on in the organisation, a merger or a diversification. So the recruiter sat there in the middle of this project, recruitment project, and suddenly he's got Austria. He's got no idea what's going on around them. So, yeah, as a candidate you're obviously thinking, well, they must be ready to hire. But that's not always the case. And some of them, sometimes they're speculative. Go to market, just see who's out there as well, aren't they? So they're not, they're not all. I know it's a bit unethical to do speculative job seekers and just to get people in, but it does happen. People are testing the market. They want to know, if we were to open an office in this new city, what's our likely response rate? So you Might want to put stuff out there, you know, fly a kite, as they say, just to see what the interest is. Absolutely.

C. Guz: I think that one unethical practise that I really hope we can like put to an end. Put an end to. And LinkedIn has been taking some action against this, but it's really, really hard to know, especially when you're a validated employer. Ghost posting. Like the jobs that are not actually real and the main intention of that is actually increasing the amount of LinkedIn followers because if you do not opt out, then essentially as a candidate you follow the employer and then that basically increases their follower count. So the marketing team seems this as a shortcut. I'm really sorry, but this is, this is what's going on. So you have to understand whether that job is real. And it's really hard to, to do.

Joanne Lockwood: Now. Everyone's. We've got to remember that recruitment is sales and marketing. It's. It's like buying or selling a house. It's like anything you're. You're just trying to match needs and, and resources and yeah, it's. Some people are ethical, some people aren't ethical, or some people bend the ethics to suit their own definition. So people will use any, any sales technique. And you gotta remember that you're. Whilst you're the most important person to you, you're not the most important person to the recruiter. The recruiter's bosses, who they're trying to hire for is. That is their client. Really, you are just the plate of chips in McDonald's. You're just the food at the end of the day. And the recruiter decides whether you want chips or whether you want jacket potato. It's trying to get into that mindset that you're not special, you're just one of a whole pile of people. I think that's where it is, but I think that's

C. Guz: where we went wrong. Like, again, the transactionalism, it must come to an end if you're being hired by a recruitment agency. If you're a candidate and a recruitment agency recruiter has seeked you out, the process will look like entirely different and the candidate experience will be relatively better because you. I don't know how to put it like this way. You said the food, so I'm just going to use that. But essentially you are valuable because if you get hired, then they get a bounty of that or a commission of that, so they need you to get hired. But again, like, if you, if they think that you're the right fit, then you're going to be seeing the top candidate experience possible from that recruiter. But I really think that again, like, we have to reestablish recruitment as a partnership. Like, it's not just me who is getting hired, but I'm also hiring you as an employer. Like I'm basically saying I have all of these great skills, great qualifications, and if you work with me, these are the things your organisation is going to be achieving and these are the areas that I can grow myself in. And it's really about meeting in the middle. Like it's not. One gets the upper hand and the other fights against it. And I think that mentality led us here, really. We have to focus on rebuilding the bridge and we have to understand and re establish recruitment as a partnership.

Joanne Lockwood: So you touched on AI earlier. I'm reading these posts on LinkedIn and other forums around recruitment and what we're ending up in is an AI bot talking to an AI bot. We look at all these no code platforms, Zapier, Pabli, mate.com, all these sort of things. You can build all this stuff that will scrape job listings, take the, the requirements, take your Persona and merge it and produce that and then email the recruiter off. Then the recruiter's got this ATS that sucks of that in AI pre processes, it matches against the job spec and then if you're good enough, you do. So are we going to be in a market where in the old days it was? If I pay $150, I can get someone to write my CV for me. That will be ATS Friendly Keyword Boolean. They'll redo my LinkedIn profile so I'll send more chance. Now you're going to have AI, no code, people writing automation scripts to say, right, you pay me a thousand bucks and I'll get you in there and I'll target you and I'll guarantee you'll be submitted to, I don't know, 50 a day and it'll be individually tailored and then we're just ending up in a world where it's like super catfishing, isn't it? On dating sites where you just, when you finally meet each other, you go, oh, who are you? That's what we're going to end up, isn't it? I love how you put it.

C. Guz: One recruiter said to us, like, it's almost like in among those 500 candidates, I'm looking for a simple human being because, like ChatGPT, like it's almost a new form of language where everyone just like Knows it as they see it, like they call it out. As a recruiter, I know like instantly when a cover letter is generated by GPT. Like, and I'm not against GPT being used like in that process. Of course, like, use that, of course paraphrase it. But if you're not putting any additional effort, then, then like, how do I know as a potential employee you will be putting that effort? So like, if I'm not looking to hire someone like average, I'm looking for someone exceptional in that process. And you're essentially telling me that you're not the exceptional person that I'm looking to hire. So you're essentially wasting your own time and going back to your question. So there is a data just before, like even these automation tools came in for, for candidates. 70% of candidates today already like lied or exaggerated facts in their resumes. We know this. So who you end up hiring or the sort of, you know, moving in the processes. But. Sorry

Joanne Lockwood: to interrupt, but. But 70% of organisations and companies lie about the job as well. So it's, it's two people bullshitting each other, isn't it? We're both selling. That's what we're doing. We're both selling an opportunity. Yeah,

C. Guz: that's, that's absolutely true. And you know, going back to it, it's, it's really now hard because we know that AI hallucinates. Like, I've tried these tools myself as well. Like it tells the, you know, the AI tool that I'm able to speak like Dutch, French and German and applies to all these positions that I'm not qualified for. And then I see the LLM as written, you know, the paragraphs. And then, you know, it just doesn't make any sense. And the recruiters are, you know, seeing them and being like, no, absolutely not. AI is not necessarily processing the applications today, which is really the hardest part because like, governments have serious consequences know against it. They're basically telling you AI cannot make employment decisions. Like, there is critical, you know, laws around this where you, you have to see each of the resumes that are, that are being passed on and filtering out is one way. And AI is able to currently like summarise or pull like information of those resumes and score them. But it cannot and should not make hiring decisions because you still require that human judgement in the process. But again, like the employers, again, that's why we have to focus on building that bridge. Like, how do we meet in the middle and stop BSing each other in this game? So if you Start talking right at the very

Joanne Lockwood: beginning about trying to see me as a human being in this process. And one thing I've always wanted to happen is you apply for an organisation and they say, actually now we've met you, we think you might be better for this role or this role or this role. Can we talk to you about other things we do in our organisation? So hiring into a talent pool if you like, or fishing people into this talent pool where they start to evaluate you, where they have a whole smorgasbord, to use a Finnish or Swedish word, of opportunities here we want to see where you fit in the organisation because actually we want to hire you because you're a great asset to our company. And then once you're here, we'll figure out what to do with you. And I say, look, give me a job and then figure out what to do with me because I'll, I'll evolve into it as well. And if you think about quite the best organisations, there's job share opportunities, there's career pivoting, there's moving into different areas of the business. Why can't I do that on the way in rather than have to wait till I'm there to do that? It's a great question. Personally, my opinion is

C. Guz: that those talent pools do not work. Like the initial reason that, you know, those recruiters or employers in general are building those pipelines is because rather talent pools is because, so that they can have access and essentially reduce the candidate acquisition cost because then they have to do recruitment marketing and then that means another investment to their recruitment budget. But most of those candidates never even get contacted and then, you know, it just becomes a reporting metric again. I think that what you're saying makes a lot of sense. There is one person, Constanti, who has been working on this for the last 20 years and he says that you essentially, you know, hire someone and they become the perfect employee. Like you cannot expect for a candidate to, you know, fill all the boxes before you hire them because you train them and they evolve into the job as you mentioned, but we don't have any tools today that focus on that evolution, that growth potential. And that's exactly one of the gaps that we want to fill in with Octopus. And essentially like you don't have the data as a recruiter to show, hey, you know, like Joanne is going to be growing to, to these areas or this person is inclined, inclined to grow in XYZ directions and they can therefore like create value for, for your business. It's, it's really Hard to assess that, especially when you have so limited data that is, that is not actionable. But

Joanne Lockwood: what a lot of progressive companies, I'd argue they're progressive, is they're building their own academies. So they're. Whether you want to call it later life apprenticeships, whether you want to. Whatever you want to call it, recognising that you don't always make the right decision when you go to college, when you go to university, when you're 25, you think, I don't want to be a chef, I want to be an engineer. And all of those early career opportunities suddenly disappear, whereas some of the smarter companies are looking and saying, okay, if you're a returning parent in your 40s, whether you've been very redundant in your 50s, whether you're. Wherever you are in your life, we're looking for fantastic people in our organisation. And in the same way, if you wanted to train to be a doctor, you go into a hospital and you do rotation around all the different departments. Actually, I want to be a brain surgeon or no, I want to be in geriatrics, I want to be in this, I want to be in that. So you specialise once you've done your baseline qualifications. So if organisations were looking at building talent academies, which is more active than a passive talent pool, I'm not talking about a marketing database, I'm talking about active opportunities to get people in who are seen as great assets to the organisation, and then we'll build you and nurture you into positions and we maybe discover in the first three months, actually, you can go this way instead. That gives people an opportunity to get back into the job market for the depression that you felt into working with an organisation. You're going to be loyal. I mean, just think about the investment they're giving you and the investment you want to give back, that loyalty you're going to give. Because there's trust there, isn't there?

C. Guz: That's true, but that also takes a lot of investment. Like, you know, a number of enterprises today would be able to invest in such a large. Because when you look at the LND power behind it and all those people who have to, like, if they're able to build those, you know, specific targeted academies, it means that they have figured out their own kind of like the, the role structures, like their L1s to L5, how does L5 look like for me versus how does it look like for you? But then your seeds say startup and you're like, okay, you have to wear so many hats and you cannot necessarily focus on, on that transition. So I think that if an expectation from the candidate is towards more structure and towards that flexibility, you know, you might enjoy wearing the hats, but maybe you will realise that you want to do something more specific so you have the more freedom and also safety in enterprises, I would say. And that's why it's really important to like, assess the behavioural characteristics of a person. One thing that I really focus on in my interviews, for example, do you feel more comfortable in structured environments, structured tasks where like, you don't have to deal with abstract instructions and you essentially are doing something with, you know, like assigned training manual. And now there is not much uncertainty there. But there are also some people who love that uncertainty. For example, me, like, give me the biggest, most complex problem and I'd rather solve that on my own than, you know, go from point A to B repetitively. But for some people, they want to specialise from like going on A to B, for example, let's say creating marketing campaigns in that specific area, maybe they want to specialise on Google Ads. So it's really, as you know, we are very different as individual differences. And I think that in terms of that flexibility, not every organisation will be able to provide that. And it's important for candidates to also recognise that as they're applying, because if that's an expectation and you're applying to a startup who recently got funded and they're in a seat and even like series A round, they won't be able to provide the same flexibility. But if you, for example, go to a more mature environment, let's say startup who's raised their like series C, series D, series E, then you're really talking about that enterprise structure where you're able to see how those roles and expectations have evolved, how other people perform. Because like all that, academies are built on the previous experiences. What did I learn internally that I can translate to, you know, external resources to attract the right talent for me, but if I lack that learning, then I essentially can't build the right funnels that I will be able to attract the right icp, the ideal candidate Persona, who will then transform into my successful employee Persona.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's not easy, is it? It's not easy. And you say, do I want structure? I love living in a world with chaos. It allows me to create, lets me to ideate, allows me to spitball blue sky, think whatever it is, but that's all well and good until you actually want me to deliver something for you, because my chaos is going to be different to your chaos. My expectations. Your expectations are going to be different. So the moment I have to deliver something, my first question is, let's nail it down. I don't want chaos at this point, I want certainty. Because if I'm going to have to work something and deliver you something, I want certainty. And I think it depends on the role, doesn't it? If you're looking for an R and D with unlimited budget, what we could do is sit there and drink coffee and ideate. Or whether you actually want a project team that's going to come up with something. You have your agile phase, you have your bit of ideations. I think the candidates you're going to. Get. You want them to be able to swap between those contexts, don't you? As well? So you can't always find that out from a bit of paper in the interview. Do you like structure or do you like chaos, as you say? My answer would be, I like both. But it depends on what you want at the time you want it. The recruitment process we have, it's just. It's not fit for purposes. It was still reliant on the cv. I often train organisations around modern contemporary recruitment practises, which is. It's not just anonymizing the cv, it's just don't have one. And using workplace samples, using the five questions, 400 words each, then grading them against predefined metrics and follow that process all the way through to interview and each level and having a diversity of thought on those questions and answers as well. But I still come back when I'm in boardrooms talking to people and they say, well, how do I know who they are without their cv? Well, you don't. You have to trust. You have to trust the process. What if we hire someone and I find out something later because I haven't got this cv? You have to trust the process. But people are so wedded to this document that we created in the 80s when, with fax machines before then, we used to fill them in by hand, didn't we? We used to fill application forms in and then the fax machine arrived and we started printing stuff out and faxing it to each other. Yeah, the first

C. Guz: ever example like that is considered. The first resume was actually created by Da Vinci. So that old we were speaking about and he was wanting to work in an architectural project, so he had to like summarise what he has done and that's the first experience and it comes from like, resume, resume to. To summarise. So essentially, like, you resum raising the things that you've done in a more digestible manner. So that, that was the earliest example. And I think that like resumes worked until some point because I think that we were still focusing on that, you know, the human element of it. But then with tech we couldn't figure out how to marry that technology with our emotional intelligence. And I think that's the challenge that we're facing today. Like we have to be efficient. Yes. But at the cost of that, you know, human touch, we became efficient. So looking at the history of resume, when from, from your point, you used to mail those resumes into organisations and then you would never hear back if you were rejected because how can I send 500 replies? And like mail was expensive, how can I, you know, like send that back to your address? So I only reach out to people who I'm interested in and would like to speak to. You've naturalise that process down but then come, you know, digitization like the HTML job application portals, the first applicant tracking system, digitising that entire process. The hiring decisions today are still not made on those applicant tracking systems. Which is the most like biggest irony to me because you know, applicant tracking systems cost thousands and thousands of dollars, up to 100,000 or more even like for, for enterprise level organisations and the biggest software providers. And they're saying that they streamline your recruitment. But if you're not making hiring decisions or if you're not enabled to make those hiring decisions, then what do you streamline? Exactly. Like if that software is not giving that actionable data to you, what do they streamline? Exactly. And what I see is then, you know, because they don't have that actionable data, these tools have empowered us to even build more layers on top of it. So it's now not three processes, not three steps of interviews, but like seven stages where there are case studies involved, system design, interviews, all these different interview processes that I am assessing you and then you're asking, being asked to like resubmit a case study re interview just because they cannot collect the actionable data. And that's where we have to focus on. And again

Joanne Lockwood: like, or the recruiters risk averse and they just want to be really, really sure, really, really, really sure. They're almost scared to make a decision sometimes, which is why they want to see you again. It's like oh, I can't sign, let's get them back in for another chance. And yeah, I think some of it is just lack of decision making or. Structured process, I would say structured process, yes. But

C. Guz: without that actionable data you're not able to like move anyone forward. You should be able to say I'm moving John Doe because he was able to demonstrate their XYZ qualifications and meets my qualifications because you know like they want to grow in XYZ areas. Like you should be able to, you know, picture that and position that completely if you're moving that candidate in the process. But I wouldn't say it's a risk aversion and you would do this as a recruiter as well because it costs up to more, more than the annual salary of an employee if they miss hire. So then it even might cost them their job depending on the policy of the organisation. Or it just, you know, leads to drastic. That's risk

Joanne Lockwood: aversion, isn't it? That's risk aversion. You know we know that the average 30k salary is cost 130k in on costs of getting it wrong. So there is a risk aversion there. And that people are driven by. I can't mess this up, you know, if this person A is not right for us or we're not right for them. Because that happens as well. You know, you get the rejection on offer, you get the, you get the first 14 days. We think oh this is for me, I'm out that walk out. So yeah, it's, it is a risk. I think what we're trying to do is we're trying to minimise those risks on both sides. Protect ourselves, protect my own job. And I think some of it is just down to lack of, lack of vigour and data in the application process. We should be able to say that person was good enough. That will do. Stop. Don't need to look any further. Rather than say oh no, we need to see the next 200 people. I say no, if you've seen the right person after three, stop. Nothing wrong with that. Sorry. We've hired. I think that like

C. Guz: the recruiter has to be constantly moving along and constantly making sure that there's like a backup of that candidate and then expectations are not being communicated well and I think that that's really creating a disconnect. But one more thing about the actionable data side going back to like establishing recruitment as a partnership. I don't know why you're inviting me to a first interview. So what we're doing with OCTOPUS is hey recruiter, this is a real time data that we collected because you've sent this targeted smart pre interview. You have those answers before even meeting that candidate. If they're not the right fit, you won't invest 20 hours for that candidate because they're not qualified for your role. Hey there, candidate. If you're not the right fit and looking at this, you're not feeling happy, we're saving you 20 hours because that's on average the roles expect you to like, invest in and per role. In today's job market, if you were to pursue five jobs at the same time, that makes 100 hours. And that leads you to burnout. If you're, you know, pursuing all of them at the same week, it's more than double full time job expectations. But that's how long it really takes to pay. So it's really a process that burns, burns out both of the sites. So looking at the partnership again. Hey recruiter, this is the data that we collected. Hey candidate, this is how you were able to demonstrate your skills and qualifications. Here's how you meet like the expectations. When you're going to that interview, you should know what you've done well, what you have not done well. And now you know how to position yourself. And because you completed that pre interview, you now know what kind of questions that the recruiter is going to ask you. So now you're set to succeed, not set to fail. And that's basically what we want to do. Like then we can really talk about an actionable, structured interview where you're not starting from point zero. Hey, who are you and where do you see yourself in five years? Like those kinds of unstructured interviews that don't lead us to anywhere. Like if you're assessing the creativity of the calendars, go ahead. But maybe in five years we're going to be dealing with another pandemic and that just doesn't tell me what I can achieve in your organisation in the long and short term. So focus on the competency inside the job performance. Many of the interviews today are structured to assess interview performance and expect that to be translated to job performance, which is again a massive problem. But going back to, you know, that partnership, if both sides have the same data now, then we can really finally talking about them being on the same page and Octopus having built that bridge. And that's why I care about that work so much. Because in every feedback the candidate will get better in every interview. And every feedback that they got from Octopus, who is being the bridge in between them and the recruiters also will figure out how to better collect that actionable data. So we're not replacing recruiters and AI cannot and should not and will not like It's a human hiring human being. So I would say that's really the core thing that we have to focus on as we focus on building that bridge and building that intersection between the human touch, the emotional intelligence and technology, I think. So say it's been absolutely

Joanne Lockwood: fascinating. We could chat all day, I'm sure. So you've mentioned Octopus several times. So you're the founder and CEO of Octopus. Do you want to just give us, in a nutshell, your elevator pitch? What is Octopus?

C. Guz: Absolutely. I've just been talking about that. I should have for that question. But to give you in a nutshell, Octopus, if you're an organisation, helps you move forward only the candidates that are aligned with your qualifications into your pipeline. So you don't have to go through the 500 resumes that don't meet your qualifications and instead send a smart pre interview that is created based on your job description. And from there you will be able to assess the qualifications you're looking for. Automatically. Candidates are going to be submitting their answers to that. So it's like a text based interview. So and on that they will be positioning themselves and you will have given the space for them to really show what they can do for your organisation and the additional information that they'd like to mention. And then you will be able to access that data real time and all those qualifications will be scored based on your requirements. So everything that you've given us, it's about you. You take that ownership, that flexibility and it's different for every job, every role, every company. And that's why we created Octopus, you know as to be your extra tentacle in this process, because as we say that the problem is so big and massive right now that arms are not solving it. So we develop tentacles. That's our motto. So we're here to be your extra tentacle and help you make that right, the hiring decision, and essentially build the bridge between the right candidate and you and the. Every candidate who submits that pre interview with you gets a feedback from Octopus saying that this is how they were able to align with your requirements and demonstrate themselves effectively. So in every pre interview that you're sending, you're actually nurturing your talent pool. And those candidates will remember because you've given them feedback. No recruiter today gives candidates automatically the actionable feedback that they're looking for. 90% of them go, so if you're looking to become a top employer, then we'd love to be your extra tentacle. Fabulous.

Joanne Lockwood: What a punchline. Let us be your extra tentacle. And we know that octopuses or octopi, they're seriously intelligent creatures, aren't they? That they're. They're smart beyond their means. They're almost like a alien life form because they're so intelligent. Yeah, I think so, the extra tentacle. And with intelligence as well, no doubt. So lovely. So, see, it's been fascinating. And if people get hold of you, how can they get hold of an Octopus demo or find out more?

C. Guz: Absolutely. You can reach out to us on our website, which is joinocto.co. So that would be J O I N O C T O . C O. Or you can find me on my LinkedIn, which is C. Guz. So, in any case, I'd love to hear from you. And if you're like, you know, being challenged from, with your current hiring process and overwhelmed by so many tools today, I'd also love to help you, you know, find the right direction. Our goal with Octopus is to, you know, help you and give you ownership that you must and should have as we navigate the age of AI human humanship.

Joanne Lockwood: Fabulous. And just if you're listening, C Guz. That's C. You've abbreviated your name because it's Turkish and it's easier for people to say C. So C full stop. And Guz is G U Z. So if you're looking for you on LinkedIn, C Guz. Easy to find you. Thank you. Absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, stories, stories or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.