Hello, new subscribers. I’ve seen an uptick in you lately, and while I’m usually out here musing about what’s weighing on my mind, this week’s newsletter is going to take a left turn from recent editions. Things have felt heavy lately, and while I am not a ray of sunshine by nature, even I can recognize when people need a boost. Or at the very least, some help.
If you know anything about me, you know that I am a powerlifter. As part of that, I spend a lot of time in my garage, where I built a gym during the pandemic. In addition to my squat rack and deadlift platform, my garage contains the random assortment of stuff that tends to accumulate in storage spaces. When I feel the need to procrastinate during a workout, I like to dig around and see what’s out there collecting dust, which is how I recently came across my off-market Care Bear piggy bank (see below).
For those uninitiated, this particular slice of millennial cheese started off with 10 cartoon bears operating from the mystical land of “Care-a-Lot.” The Care Bears would work together to stand up to evil and radiate love and light into the world through their stomachs. Cue the theme song.
Leaving the magical powers of my torso out of this equation, but coming from a considerate place nonetheless, here are a few helpful tips I’ve picked up recently:
Log in to your LinkedIn account. Navigate to “Settings & Privacy.” Go to “Data Privacy.” Under “How LinkedIn uses your data,” select “Data for Generative AI Improvement” and toggle off.
Go into your Gmail account from your web browser. Select the Settings gear icon in the top right corner and click “See all settings.” Under “General,” scroll down to “Smart Features” and uncheck the box that says, “Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet.” Go down one more to “Google Workspace smart features,” click “Manage Workspace smart feature settings,” and toggle off both options. Hit save and reload.
If you’re a Firefox user, you already can manually control which individual AI features you use by going into “Settings” and selecting “AI controls.” Starting with Mozilla’s next release on February 24, you’ll also have the option of turning on the “Block AI enhancements” toggle. That will switch off everything AI-related and take you back to simpler times (though not the 1980s).
For those of us who are still using Google for search, reports about the accuracy of those AI Overviews vary, with some speculating they might be wrong up to 60 percent of the time. Yet you can’t disable them altogether. Work around this issue by adding -AI to your query or use the “web” filter in the top nav.
Why am I offering this advice? Well, for starters, sharing is caring, as those dang bears taught me. More than that, most of us didn’t sign up for this level of everyday AI. Some of it happened with little warning. And taking LinkedIn as an example, if left on, LinkedIn and its unspecified “affiliates” (cough, Microsoft) have seemingly unfettered access to your data, save for private messages, log-in credentials, and payment information. That means feed posts, as well as all those easy applications and resumes that people upload. You can dig into their FAQ to see for yourself, but what’s provided feels nebulous at best. And as someone who communicates for a living, I don’t do nebulous well. I want more information, even understanding how corporate strategies work.
As an autonomous being, I like to pretend I have control over myself, and for all the talk about transparency in AI, there doesn’t seem to be much when you start to look around. That might be why AI use appears to have peaked with PR pros, according to a new Muck Rack report. The facts and figures in this latest State of AI in PR aren’t exactly surprising. We know AI. We apply it where we want to, with policies and training to support our use cases, and that’s that.
Though we don’t hear as much about AI for good anymore, that doesn’t mean the concept is obsolete. By talking about it with one another, sharing tricks of the trade, whether that’s something quick to implement as you go about your day, or 60 Ways to Hack Your Chatbot, we can stay attuned to one another. Which, if you ask me, is where our collective strength lies. And with that, I’ve got one last fun one for you: Shared Claude, a shared, live AI that anyone can text. Oh, and all conversations are public for those wondering.
Dear Laura,
I was reading one of your recent LinkedIn posts about coaching TA teams. I’ve never thought about asking for this type of help before. What does it look like? How can I make the business case to my boss?
Best,
Looking to hire better
Dear Looking to hire better,
Thanks for asking. You’re not the only one who never thought about this type of help before, so fret not! I bet, if you’re like most companies, you have robust training for ‘new managers’ or your ‘sales teams’ and offer ‘executive coaching’ to your C-suite. But, when it comes to hiring, maybe you have a mandatory bias training or a basic interview guide? You’re not alone.
Here’s what’s happening, though: Leaders are realizing their hiring efforts need help. They’re spending too much on external agency fees. Their searches sit open for four months or longer. Candidates are sharing dissatisfaction. Hiring Managers don’t trust that their internal recruiters can ‘handle the search.’ HRBPs and TA pros are competing rather than collaborating. It’s messy!
Good news: It can all be fixed, with some training and development. I started offering coaching to TA teams when clients shared these frustrations with me, along with the (oh so common) “We have a great internal TA team, but they’re quite transactional. We’d like them to transition from order-takers to strategic advisors. Can you help us elevate their skills?” Yes, indeed.
How to make the case to your boss? Find out their pain points, their goals for their TA team, and the frustrations they seem to face. Above all, remind them that TA is like any other department (worthy of L&D), that upskilling means saving money (In this case, easy ROI with agency fee spend each year. An easy report your CFO can pull for you), and that when you elevate your TA function, you also elevate your employer brand, your external reputation, the quality of incoming talent and it literally improves everyone’s experience (HM, candidate, TA Pro, interviewing team).
Good hiring is good business.
Your friend,
Laura of East Side Staffing
While most articles I’ve read over the last year attribute the ongoing layoffs to an increase in AI, this one offers a different narrative, linking cuts to a pandemic-era hiring spree. Chock full of data, a tiny sentence in the middle jumped out at me: “The unemployment rate, while up from 2024, is well below pre-pandemic levels.”
For those following Moltbook, the “Reddit-like” network for AI agents, it turns out, there’s already been a huge security hole that allowed the bots to share sensitive info about their humans. Reportedly fixed, it was a “classic byproduct” of vibe coding, though what does that say about a site launched two weeks ago?
No doubt you’ve heard about the Washington Post layoffs by now. Did you read the story of Martin Weil? Sixty years of service and poof, his career is over. A reminder that, sadly, at the end of the day, most of us are a line item on a balance sheet somewhere. It’s up to us to uphold one another’s legacies and work.
David Turetsky of HR Data Labs® fame recently launched “The HR Channel,” available on Roku and Fire TV for anyone who wants to watch along instead of just listening.
I popped over on the latest episode of HR & Payroll 2.0 with Pete A. Tiliakos and Julie Fernandez, talking about what’s happening in PR and marketing communications as it relates to the current state of HR and HR tech.
Have you been ghosted? Want to report it? There’s an app … er, website for that, and I can’t say I’m surprised. Candidates are now checking in with each other over at Report Ghosting, and there’s even a top five list.
The American Business Awards (deadline February 10)
Globee Awards for Technology (deadline February 25)
HR Tech Europe Pitchfest (deadline March 13)
Reading: Annie Bot: A Novel by Sierra Greer. Think “book of the month club” meets science fiction lite. Without giving much away, I’ll say I’m not the only one who can’t escape AI these days.
Watching: The late Catherine O’Hara in her Christopher Guest era. She was one of the great mothers of my lifetime (minus forgetting Macaulay Culkin at home a couple of times), and it turns out, in real life, that was her favorite role, too.
Listening: Paris Paloma - Good Girl. On repeat. Something about the lyric, “And if you call me good girl, one more time, then I will break your nose,” really resonates with me lately.
Exploring: Stakkd. A newer site (late 2024, I believe?) that lets you build stacks based on your HR tech and AI needs. So far, 344 solutions have been listed, with 110 verified, but the list is growing rapidly.
Given Punxsutawney Phil’s recent prediction, subzero windchills here at the Jersey Shore, and a general lack of interest in this year’s Super Bowl, I’ll be burrowing under a blanket for the foreseeable future. So, until next time, keep unlocking the hype.
- Katie
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