Greg Arthur (00:02.177)
Alrighty, welcome to this edition of the Product Design for Learning podcast. We have got someone I've known for a while, but never really got into this deep conversation with a lovely chap called Andrew Welsh from Instinct. Welcome, Andrew. We're glad to have you on. And this is an off process topic where we're going to talk about recruitment in L &D and Andrews from Instinct, as I said, and I'll let him do a little intro in second, but
Andrew Welsh (00:18.542)
Thank you very much, Greg.
Greg Arthur (00:31.501)
He's one of the good guys. just to preface this whole episode with a good egg, I would recommend him to anyone. So that's my intro. But Andrew, could you give us a quick 60 seconds on your career in recruiting for learning and NHR roles?
Andrew Welsh (00:45.91)
Yeah, of course, one of the very few recruitment good eggs. Yeah, so I've actually done L &D recruitment for 14, well this is my 14th year in L &D recruitment, which is quite scary actually when I looked at that this morning. I imagine if you've got a similar amount of time in the sector, because I feel like that's quite a lot of those years.
Greg Arthur (01:05.817)
Simba. Yeah, yeah, about the same that time, yeah.
Andrew Welsh (01:10.488)
Yeah, so all 14 of those years I've spent working for Instinct, so we were an employee owned L &D focused recruitment agency based in Manchester. So we really badge ourselves and market ourselves as digital learning specialists and that's kind of always been our USP. But in reality, all of our clients are either L &D departments or companies that sell into L &D and we do lots in higher education too. So we do cover the breadth really of L
That's typically kind of strategic positions, content focused roles, business partnering, and then more technology focused positions and platform.
interest of that matter. we're about, well in a good year, we're about 50-50 between interim and permanent recruitment, that's not necessarily where it's worked out the last couple of years, but yeah we're for both of those things basically and we're, I if I mentioned, we're in Manchester, but we cover the whole of the UK and a little bit beyond, do a little bit in the US, some in continental Europe too.
Greg Arthur (02:13.932)
Nice. Nice. Lovely. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there. Sorry, Audrey. Well, no one's ever actually got into 60 seconds when I've said, oh, give me your stick. And I think I tried it myself and I was like, this is impossible. But the first person that does, I will buy them a drink, whoever they are, whenever they come on. I'll buy you a drink anyway. But first thing to get into was, mentioned you got 14 years in L &D recruitment.
Andrew Welsh (02:16.554)
It's alright, it was about 60 seconds.
Thank you.
Andrew Welsh (02:34.242)
Thank you much.
Greg Arthur (02:42.198)
So what's the biggest thing you've taken away from your time as a recruiter in this industry? we were talking just before we started recording about this last 12 months has been a bit wild compared to normal, but what's been your biggest takeaway, I guess, from any period in your career?
Andrew Welsh (02:57.462)
Yeah, I think the first thing I'd say is, and this is not just contrived, but it is a really good sector to recruit in. think people, we've dabbled and I've dabbled outside of L &D recruitment in various other...
like tech for example. think the people typically in L &D are usually very people focused, usually extroverted. I think if you've chosen your career to be about education that is usually very communicative. It's been impossible for us as well because it's not a very saturated market with recruiters. It's possible for us to get a good footing in it. So I think that's the first thing. I think it's been a really good market for us to be involved with and a good community feel to it too.
you know you do notice that when you go to the events etc and everyone's happy to help each other and everyone's happy to develop each other and it's you know it's a really altruistic sector I think so I think in terms of how I've seen things over the last few years I mean if we look if we roll the timeline all the way back to post lockdown when things started opening up again we've never been busier first and foremost in the higher education sector when they just needed to get things online for example
Greg Arthur (04:03.479)
Hmm.
Andrew Welsh (04:13.456)
coming to us for that. But then laterally companies started to really recruit, you know, 2021, 2022. There's never been such a high demand for our services. And actually the problem that we had back then was more of a scarcity of talent than demand for our services. So, you we were really struggling to get good quality candidates and everyone was fighting over the same scarce resources. So that really changed around...
probably about Easter time 2023. And then we saw things go 180 and flip on their head from that perspective. And since then, I don't know if that coincides with the period of inflation and...
you know, all the economic uncertainty. Since then, we're actually seeing the opposite of that. Fewer roles, lower demand for our services. Particularly around permanent recruitment, we've had a lot more demand for our services on interim and freelance, particularly in the last year or so, which to me suggests that there's confidence returning to the market, but maybe not enough to get headcount signed off and there's projects that they're doing or politically it's difficult to because you made redundancies. But there are these projects that are coming online that you've got budget
Greg Arthur (05:10.26)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (05:18.888)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (05:25.142)
for so that's all feels like it could be a bit of a halfway house getting back towards the period of confidence as I say I missed
Greg Arthur (05:31.861)
Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's been, it's been a wild, I'm to say 12, 12 to 18, maybe even two years, months, well, 24 months even. There's been, so we were talking about and you mentioned it just now about the uncertainty, the economic stuff. And I've noticed some of it from, from just being on LinkedIn, which I guess is where most, most of us catch up with, with what's going on. But also from friends and people I've worked with, but like,
huge reduction in roles available. There has been things like, and this is not aimed at you, this is just what I've seen on LinkedIn, things like massively inconsistent job titles, where it's like you might see a learning manager and then another learning manager role posted and one's paying 30k, one's paying 100k. How do you, an agency, kind of try and navigate that kind of, because guess some of it is predefined by the organisation.
Andrew Welsh (06:18.773)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (06:28.992)
Yeah, I think that the job title thing, it's nothing new there to be honest with you. think companies, depending on who's doing the recruitment.
varying degree of knowledge as to the market and or sometimes someone in HR for example might just say right we're calling it this and as you say you might get a learning manager and they're not actually managing anything and they're know paying 30k I think the key thing is always to have a look at the job description and when we're when we're taking a brief from a client we do a vacancy consultation and we're trying to need a needle out of them what is it you actually want and then we'll probably try and advertise it as a bit more of a categorized title that's going to attract the right people.
I think the other major bugbear of mine is when companies are advertising roles like learning manager not putting a salary on there and then people are actually L &D managers or hire or applying for that job getting through an initial interview stage or get into a screening call and if wasted their time, the client's time I don't see why you wouldn't just put a salary on a...
Greg Arthur (07:15.528)
Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Arthur (07:31.477)
this this is it and I've seen I've seen this come up on on LinkedIn again like a million times where people are like you know put a light bulb for this or a thumbs up for that whatever your opinion is or like a poll and it's always been just put the salary on there like at least just let me know what I would need to do and one of the things which was going to be a later on question but things like from a candidate side also I guess from a recruiter side and employer side things like
Andrew Welsh (07:47.203)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (08:00.809)
like tasks or case studies that come up during that process. So personally, I don't mind them, but I've only ever had to do a handful and it's usually been kind of later in the process. But with things like salaries not on the job spec or the advert, people asking for tasks or categories, not categories, like case studies, where do you kind of advise people on that? Because it feels like it's a real polarizing thing in recruitment.
Andrew Welsh (08:22.39)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (08:29.494)
Yeah, we do both interim and permanent recruitment. I think when it's a permanent recruitment process, I see nothing wrong with a reasonable case study because...
We try and tell clients to keep things as brief as possible, have two interviews rather than three and then meet the boss, keep these things as streamlined as possible. But a short case study, I think, is a good way of, seeing whether the candidate is committed, and B, testing their ability against the job. Obviously they need to be bought in by that point anyway.
Where I do get really put off by it is if you're asking contracts and freelancers to do case studies because by definition, not everyone's time is their money, but that is literally, they're charged by the hour for their time. So asking somebody to do a three, four hour case study.
for a three month contract. I think that's a little bit, a bit much. So we always advise clients that that's not ideal. We had a client the other day that did set tasks for a contract, but the contract was a year long. there's a bit of a pot of gold at the of the rainbow. It's probably worthwhile people invest in that time. yeah, I think any task needs to be relatively modest. You can't have somebody spending a day on something. It has to be just get there.
Greg Arthur (09:37.684)
Fair enough, yeah.
Andrew Welsh (09:54.118)
get their thinking, rather than any sort of finished product. I feel a little bit harsh sometimes with some of the ones that see.
Greg Arthur (09:55.869)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (10:02.98)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think, think like I say, from the case studies or the tasks I've done previously, it's usually, if anything, it's actually been always at the very end of the process, when it's kind of like you're down to the last handful. And that kind of didn't feel, at least in my study, at least it didn't feel too, it didn't feel like a pain in the ass to do it at the end. So was like, it's just fine. I'm kind of expecting to do that. Yeah. But like, is right now, would you say it's a,
Andrew Welsh (10:16.973)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (10:25.996)
Yeah, you know you're Thereabouts with the role. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Arthur (10:32.453)
an employer's market.
Andrew Welsh (10:34.723)
Yes.
that that's it and I was going to kind of make that point that whereas 18 months ago, two years ago, maybe, yeah, probably more like two years ago, we were having candidates who were just, if they were getting to a final part of the process and one had a task and the other one didn't, they've got that much option that they were just kind of going with the path of least resistance. So we were having to advise our clients of that, look, you need your process to reflect the fact that this is an incredibly competitive marketplace and everyone's getting four or five offers and they're getting asked to stay where.
they are and get an increased salary where they are. was a crazy market in that regard. Whereas now I think candidates need to be a little bit more aware that they're in a much, much more of bullish market where they're going to be up against other very high quality candidates who've been misplaced from other positions. And so you're going to have to jump through more of these hoops than you maybe would have been comfortable with previously.
Greg Arthur (11:28.775)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. one of the things, and again, I don't, having worked with you guys and actually been an end user of instinct, this is absolutely not an instinct thing or problem I've noticed at all. But again, from friends, people I've seen on LinkedIn, ghosting from recruiters. This is just recruiters in general. I'm not singling anyone out before I get lambasted.
Andrew Welsh (11:51.502)
Very carefully we go with this one.
Greg Arthur (11:54.639)
get 400 recruiters coming to my house to beat me up in a minute. But ghosting from recruiters and it's kind of like agency and internal TA seems to be way more of a thing than it used to be. So my immediate gut reaction is come on at least respond to everyone even if it's like an automated thanks but no thanks if it's early stages. If it's in an interview process I kind of feel like people are owed something rather than just a
just a blanket response, but then it does feel a bit like it's becoming so common. But on the flip side, there are so many more applicants than usual. Like, is it more of a time thing? mean, what do you see happening?
Andrew Welsh (12:36.46)
Yeah, I this.
There is that, I've got some empathy I suppose, one of the policies that we have internally and I've always said is we're operating in such a small marketplace, very easy for someone to fall out with you. If someone has gone to all the effort of going to an interview, then the least you can do is get back to them. We don't always get feedback from our clients, but we'll always try and endeavour to get feedback where we can. So yeah, I do see that side of it.
we're kind of guilty of not feeding back that's that's quite an important issue that we highlight internally because as I say we mutation is everything and it's very quickly can deteriorate if you're not going back to people the reason why it's on the increase I imagine like you said it's just due to pure volume of applications I imagine I mean you see as well as I do on LinkedIn when there's how many people applied to this job it's always about 100 at the moment isn't it so but again there's functionality on LinkedIn where you can actually send an automated email to anyone who hasn't been taken
Greg Arthur (13:30.095)
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Welsh (13:37.408)
taken through so it's not as though it takes that long to actually do.
Greg Arthur (13:42.129)
so there is a get out.
Andrew Welsh (13:43.406)
Yeah, exactly. yeah, think it's quite shoddy, isn't it, really? I think that's the top of the bottom of it. You've to remember that people are humans. And as well, I think I mentioned this to you earlier, people need a lot of resilience at the moment. And it's quite tough out there. It's that competitive. So getting some development points and getting feedback from interview processes, even if you weren't successful, is important.
Greg Arthur (14:01.04)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (14:11.089)
Yeah, absolutely. And I guess we're always seeing this from like a... Well, I'm always seeing this largely from a candlestick side, as in from friends and people I know that are looking for work or looking to change roles. But I you get to see it from both. Like, where is the market? I guess it's a bit of a, how long is a piece of string question? And we were recording this in January of 2025. So just for when this comes out, this is what we're talking about right now. Where are you seeing the market as in...
what you're used to over guess the last 14 years and what's been wildly different leading up to now and I guess the third point, where do you think it's going in the next six to 12 months? guess that's a pretty big question.
Andrew Welsh (14:53.635)
Yeah.
Yeah, it is. Yeah, let me do my best to answer that one. So I think the key thing I've taken is that almost freakishly our overall vacancies taken were almost exactly 50-50 between interim and PERM over the last few years. It might slip to 60-40 either way, but there's been real equilibrium there between demand for both of those. Whereas in the last 18 months, we almost weren't getting any PERM for large periods of this. yeah, it was...
That could be for a number of reasons.
clients when they are advertising they're lots of applicants directly so it's not necessarily no permanent recruitment happening out there it's just the necessity to use an agency maybe isn't there as much but then we have seen a massive increase and that was one of our big successes from last year is we massively increased the number of contractors on our books and working with clients higher than it's ever been even in the boom times so I think I looked at it the other day and it was make some
something like 84 % now of our business is being contract whereas that's all consistently so that's a major change from the last 13 years or so. Now why I'm not so sure I I think one of the things contract is a bit of a different service offering from us so people often have a project they need it executed quite quickly we've got people we've used for 10 years or on multiple occasions so we can match that up and get that over the line a lot quicker than a permanent hire.
Greg Arthur (16:26.608)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Welsh (16:27.024)
And then obviously there's the whole contractual side and the payroll. So we're almost offering a bit of a different service there and I wonder whether people have just decided it's easy to use an agency for that and then there's probably no need to really for permanent recruitment at the moment until things... because these things are always cyclical.
Greg Arthur (16:48.081)
Yeah, and that's the thing. know I was tending to think similar to this cyclical, but then I guess the last I'm going to say 18 months to give it a fairly defined window. So kind of from the summer of 23 up until now, um, obviously a lot of political, a lot has changed at least in the UK. Don't want to make it a political episode, but lots about to change in the U S I appreciate that has a lot of issues around just how we do
business as a global organization, as well as global population even. But especially in the UK, things like that had a huge impact on things like housing and tax and environment and all these things that may not necessarily affect learning jobs directly, but they may be like two or three steps removed in terms of how those organizations work. That's got to have a massive impact, but...
Andrew Welsh (17:21.068)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (17:36.366)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (17:44.09)
this isn't the first time we've changed government in the UK. So like, how has that been different this time to, I guess, the last time it's happened for you?
Andrew Welsh (17:52.43)
I think.
Yeah, these things do have a massive impact. when I've seen that most acutely was actually during COVID, during lockdown, every time there was some good news came out, right, we're going to change the rules and lessen them slightly. We're actually getting a raft of requirements the following week. That's how reactive the recruitment market was to the wider political scene. ever since then, I've realized how important these, and of course, all this happens within the context of the economy.
So it's obvious that it's all very important. I spent a lot of time kind of fixated on the election thinking, right, as soon as we've got some certainty, then all these new roles will get signed off and recruitment will kickstart again. And in actual fact, nothing really, I think the, the election in July or?
Greg Arthur (18:39.235)
Yeah, was in the, yeah, June or July, something like that. I should know, but yeah.
Andrew Welsh (18:42.286)
Yeah, I think Q3 was one of our quieter periods, but then when you look at it, in actual fact an election in itself doesn't actually create certainty. All you've got to go off is manifesto pledges, which most political parties ignore anyway, don't they? So the and the pudding was probably in the budget when you see exactly what they've laid out and then companies can start properly planning and doing their resource and strategies around that. Maybe it wasn't the most business friendly budget, but at least companies know what they're dealing with now.
what their NI charges are going to be. They know what the wider context is that they're operating in. So we did feel towards the end of the year that things were picking up and we had a strong end to the year. whether or not that was the election or the US election or otherwise, I don't know. But yeah, I I'm hoping that the certainty that we now have, because it has been quite a tumultuous few years, hasn't it? So I'm hoping, certainly we now have.
Greg Arthur (19:40.003)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (19:42.2)
sides at Atlantic, we know exactly what we're dealing with so I'm hoping that feeds into some stability for business as I say every day.
Greg Arthur (19:49.369)
Fingers crossed. And I agree with you. it's like say, it's an interesting point about the fact that both sides of the Atlantic of within, I guess, the same six month window, or even three month window, like defined which one they're going to pick. And they've just sort of said, right, we're getting on with it now. It kind of feels like regardless how anyone agrees, disagrees with whatever's happened, at least there is some sort of level of
you you kind of know what to expect.
Andrew Welsh (20:20.79)
Yeah, but then again, there's going to be unknowns within that too. Will Trump implement tariffs? Will we be involved with that? These are going to be the next uncertainty. You kind of, move from one major event to the next, don't you? just wait with pain in breath. Yeah, exactly.
Greg Arthur (20:27.895)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (20:33.559)
Yeah.
You try and roll with the punches. mean, I guess the one thing that I was, one thing I was chatting to someone about the other day was about, we were talking about saying completely separate and we'd said, what if another COVID happened? And their response was, well, at least it will be 50 % different to last time. And I didn't fully understand what they said initially, what they meant initially. were saying, well, Trump was in power for their side during COVID the first time. But we've obviously got a completely, not even a different leader, but a completely different.
party running UK. And I was just thinking, we'll both countries have, or both governments have the hindsight of this is what happened last time. Let's see what happens this time. And it was also a bit of a weird one to think about what, what, would businesses react differently now having gone through the whole shift of more people working at home, more remote workers, more freedom of, I guess, freedom of information where
Andrew Welsh (21:06.478)
you
Andrew Welsh (21:17.496)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (21:34.262)
you don't have to physically be in an office, that kind of thing. I don't know if that plays out much in your world.
Andrew Welsh (21:37.87)
And I think by the way, that on that point, that...
is probably one of the things, well it's certainly one of the things behind the increased number of applicants for every role because if you can work, it's casting the net wider. Every role now, we are seeing companies slowly but surely return to the office on this kind of two and three basis, but it's still opened up the net for applicants. If there was a role in London previously, people were expected to be in four or five days a week most of the time. so now there's people from all around the country applying for these sorts of roles.
That's another thing making things more competitive, I think.
Greg Arthur (22:15.053)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think it'll be, I was about to say, think it'll be interesting. I think it'll be still as terrifying, but kind of hopefully more optimistic if we had that kind of like pandemic level threat again, like in the UK, like.
Andrew Welsh (22:30.35)
Yeah, think every pandemic is going to be different is the problem. we'll probably have all the next time one comes along will be all these kind of battle weary COVID guys going, oh, don't worry about it. We know what we're doing. then it's probably going to be a highly new reaction to depending on what exactly the pandemic is.
Greg Arthur (22:35.021)
You
Greg Arthur (22:42.572)
Something else happens.
Greg Arthur (22:49.184)
Yeah, yeah, I'm hoping that, well, I'm hoping that none happened, but you know, like you say, anything, anything could happen. That's the thing. You just got to roll with the punches. But I guess for, for where you were saying about your split as well between contract and perm stuff.
Andrew Welsh (22:52.224)
Yeah, yeah.
Greg Arthur (23:07.672)
Does that, do you, sorry, I'll rephrase all that. So your contracts and permitting, you're saying it's kind of like leaning much more heavily towards contracts at the moment. Do you see the market as a whole because of things like the pandemic and that obviously had a global effect. Do you see that being more of the norm now that people are more focused on that kind of gig economy because people maybe do want to focus more on projects. Therefore, is it more the employers want to focus on it or is it, or is it just, we're just guessing at the moment.
Andrew Welsh (23:29.108)
and
Andrew Welsh (23:38.925)
I'm still yet to know if that's a major trend or a lasting trend. feels to me, because Receive Wisdom from my bosses who they worked through 2008, Economic Development for example, and they said contract comes back first and the Receive Wisdom from them was
Greg Arthur (23:52.208)
man, yeah.
Andrew Welsh (23:59.128)
Clients have let their staff go but then suddenly the green shoots start up here. There's projects they need to execute. They've got headcount freeze. So the way around that is to bring in a contractor. So it does tally a bit with that set of circumstances I think. Whether or not we are shifting more towards gig economy remains to be seen. mean you can see why we might be. But then again, one of Labour's key manifesto pledges is to look at all that and I have no doubt there'll be some
legislation around the governance of contracts and sometimes with that sort of legislation by the way it's not actually the legislation itself which causes an issue in the market it's interpretation of it and with IR35 for example
There are clear ways that you can assess every contractor for IR35 and whether or not they sit inside of it and are affected by the legislation. But what lots of companies, particularly large ones, chose to do was just ignore that and just deem everybody to be inside of IR35. And that was just a risk averse reaction to some legislation. Now, Labour are talking about tackling the gig economy and no doubt that will bring in legislation. Again, I'm really guessing here, but it's how that's interpreted in organisations.
and their reaction that can sometimes be as damaging as anything really.
Greg Arthur (25:19.083)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the whole IR 35 thing, I think I understand it. Most of time I just kind of wait for someone to tell me which one it is and which one it isn't, and I kind of go fine. But I feel it's a bit like the offside rule. think I can explain it to someone, but I'm sure someone smarter than me will go, actually, you missed this point here and that's not quite right. is that a turnoff for...
Andrew Welsh (25:34.638)
So.
Greg Arthur (25:48.747)
not necessarily employers, but for like applicants.
Andrew Welsh (25:53.326)
Yeah, I think there was a lot of people thought it would be the end of contracting and you get the overreaction, don't you, to a lot of this sort of stuff and it's not. It just means that particularly a lot of the big, banks and a lot of the really big companies, they were just being risk averse and saying everyone's got to be inside and I can see why a contractor, if someone's been contracting for years and they're to contracting via their own PSC and suddenly they're told that they need to be inside so they're paying national insurance at the same level as an employee.
Greg Arthur (25:58.153)
Really?
Andrew Welsh (26:24.279)
and sometimes they have to pay the employers, National Insurance too, and they're not getting any of the protections of a permanent employee, they're not getting, you know, some income, incapacity benefits, know, sickness benefits or holiday entitlements. Yeah, you're having to pay all the same taxes. I can see why that was lots of people left.
Greg Arthur (26:26.965)
Mm-mm.
Andrew Welsh (26:45.906)
the contracting market for those reasons. But again, the legislation is that you're supposed to do a check on each contractor and if they're a bona fide contractor and they're not an employee then they should sit outside of this legislation. shouldn't actually, nothing really changed with the legislation, was just who had to actually do the assessments that changed last time around and that moved from self-assessing almost to actually being the liability of the hiring client. And so suddenly with that potential risk a lot of them
just said right we're only employing people via umbrellas which is essentially inside of IA35 or just making them inside of IA35 so yeah as I say it was more the implementation of the legislation than the legislation itself which caused problems.
Greg Arthur (27:30.046)
Yeah. Nice. I'm gonna have to rewatch that afterwards and fully understand what you just said, but I'm sure it's a great-
Andrew Welsh (27:36.014)
I'd probably ramble and I'd probably confuse myself.
Greg Arthur (27:40.33)
I'm sure it's a much more eloquent example of why our 35 is and isn't than what I could explain. So thank you. I know we didn't talk about this upfront and I apologize for dropping it on you, but in terms of like one thing I was thinking about, and again, I spoke to someone the other day that gave me, I mentioned I was talking to some recruiters and they said, I've got a couple of questions for them. So got a couple of questions from some people that had asked about things like what, so.
We were talking about end of year lists, like it was the whole Spotify wrapped thing and then everyone else that has any other product seems to want to have an end of year kind of wrap up thing. But one thing that seems to happen every year within learning is these skills lists where they go, these are the top 10 skills that employers want or learners need or we as L &D people need. And I tend to not really pay attention to them because it kind of feels like, well, for what purpose?
kind of getting a whole rabbit hole of what problem you're trying to solve, do you even need that skill, blah, blah, blah. But in terms of what employers are looking for, in general, is there any kind of shift more towards like the AI being a big thing, or is there any kind of shift away from more of the, I'm gonna say more heritage skills like e-learning or school more kind of LMS kind of management? Is there any kind of shift that you're seeing from the work that's coming through you guys or is that?
Andrew Welsh (28:41.568)
Thank you.
Greg Arthur (29:06.216)
Or is it still a fairly broad open range of skills that people are looking for?
Andrew Welsh (29:11.374)
Yeah, fairly broad. we did some analysis actually on job specs and how often artificial intelligence or any AI tools is mentioned in our job specs over a period. I think we started that in 2020 and then just looked over the years and just took a random sample of our job specs just to see. Because I feel like generally, AI has been around for a long time, hasn't it? But then it really hit the kind of the mainstream, I suppose, when
Greg Arthur (29:34.355)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (29:41.326)
when CHAT GBT became ubiquitous, it? So that's when everyone started talking about it. And what we do see is that it goes from not being mentioned at all a few years ago to now most of the job specs that we have.
arbitrarily throw in, they use, it must be up to date with AI generation tools, generative content tools. it's, yeah, we're seeing that requested more and more. mean, whether or not any companies are implementing AI in a meaningful way, I don't know. But I do think there's enough noise in the market that that could be affecting decision making, to be honest. it will eventually, I have no doubt that it will really change the industry
Greg Arthur (30:17.469)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (30:24.618)
But it's just how long is that run with is my question really. I mean have you got any views on that?
Greg Arthur (30:32.169)
I've seen it pop up in conversations, but I've not seen it. I looked at kind of job specs for a while, but I've not. I've seen it pop up in conversations. I've seen it pop up on the kind of end of year lists and the skills that people need and these kinds of things. But again, same as you, I don't see companies using it meaningfully or like heavily. Like I see people talking about, we use co-pilot.
Andrew Welsh (30:48.418)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (31:01.16)
But then when you ask them, great, what are you using Codepart for? more like, I was taking notes in my meeting or it's giving me a summary of this workshop that we're in for the whole day. things that are really, really useful, but it's not a point where someone's going, I kind of want to say it out loud because it might replace my entire job. Like it doesn't feel like it's got to that point yet where.
Andrew Welsh (31:06.189)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (31:13.838)
you
Andrew Welsh (31:23.383)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. I've spoken to some people who've said that they've managed to improve processes by 70 % of efficiency, I think some of that was quite, I think the lower level churn out stuff anyway, for example, compliance based e-learning that no one really ever cared if it was any good, it was more of a tick in a box to cover a company from a compliance perspective. That sort of stuff would probably be automated in terms of content development very quickly.
Greg Arthur (31:41.894)
Mm.
Andrew Welsh (31:53.896)
So, know, that's something I think we'll probably see. But then, as you say, there's a lot of barriers for this to be used meaningfully. There's security concerns. Every company operates in a very different pace as well with how advanced they are. So we've got some clients who are literally where other clients were 10 years ago. And I'm not even kidding. They're just starting to install their own first LMS, for example, other people are saying, the LMS is dead.
Greg Arthur (32:19.292)
Yeah, yeah.
Greg Arthur (32:22.834)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (32:23.76)
So I think any technological implementation is going to be lagged across depending on the sector and the industry, the type of company, who the CEO is and how bought in they are to it all. That's why I just feel like this would be a longer runway than most people. I'm no expert by the way. I just feel like these things take longer to adopt. But then they probably happen so incrementally that you don't even realise that it's happening.
Greg Arthur (32:42.898)
Same, same.
Greg Arthur (32:51.772)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, that's right. So like, I seem to, and again, this is my perception, I could be entirely wrong. I seem to see more people talking about it and the threat of AI, like taking our jobs and doing this and doing that and just creeping up on us rather than people actually doing anything with it. That's getting to a point where you're going, shit, that's probably, you know, if that does, if that does happen in every company, then we should all start to panic. But then
Andrew Welsh (33:14.702)
Mm.
Andrew Welsh (33:20.972)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (33:21.947)
I'm also seeing people that are going, here's a really meaningful use of it. So we've got Ross Stevenson coming on in a couple of weeks to talk about AI and design. And that seems to be his current kind of anchor is that he's really like, if you had a Ross in every company, then yes, I would probably start to panic about it. But like, he's one guy. But also I think it's, as you just said as well, I think it's a case of what are they doing with it?
Andrew Welsh (33:30.357)
yeah, yeah, yeah, he's brilliant.
Andrew Welsh (33:40.254)
Mmm. Yeah.
Greg Arthur (33:51.141)
And if they're tackling things like compliance training, very rarely at the moment am I seeing whole teams that just focus on compliance training. It's usually like a bit of someone's job. So if someone can go, this bit of my job is pretty boring. We can get AI to do it and it still does the same thing. Great, just freeze them up to do something else.
Andrew Welsh (34:00.174)
Exactly.
Andrew Welsh (34:10.478)
Yeah, and I'll deal with the value chain as well. yeah, that's the other. But I suppose in terms of how it's affecting recruitment, I don't know if this is just anecdotal, but in my mind, even if it's making, even if people are implementing this from the bottom up, let's just say if you're a learning designer, you're starting to use ChakTBT, and it's making you 20 % more efficient, if you then kind of look at that at the macro level, that's gonna mean less, should really mean less work out there in theory.
Well, it probably is having some kind of effect on the employment market because it's making people more efficient whether or not we'll see those wholesale changes, entire jobs, departments being replaced. That will happen eventually I have no doubt but I don't know how long that will be. Ask Ross, I'll listen to that.
Greg Arthur (35:00.039)
I'll write it down in the last box because I'd like to know as well. I think, and David James has said this a number of times as well about his, and I'm going to bastardize everything he said, but he gave a, I'm going to say prediction. Maybe he said like a hypothesis, I'm not entirely sure, but basically like the role of learning as a whole in corporate roles over the next, I don't know, five, 10, 20 years is going to be, it's still going to be needed. It's just going to shift from what it is now.
And just going back to the skills thing, so where we sort of honed in on AI, are there any particular skills that are emerging that you're seeing when people are, the clients are coming to you to say, need this type of role, but is there any skills that maybe are being mentioned louder now than they were maybe two, three, four years ago?
Andrew Welsh (35:50.712)
The one I did see a trend towards, admittedly this seems to have stopped, but there was a few clients reached out to us and said, we're going to need heavy duty data analysts for our L &D team.
Greg Arthur (36:03.077)
Yes.
Andrew Welsh (36:05.602)
then my kind of retort was well you and every other department are going to be competing for these data graduates. That seems to be a trend now. I think it's become more a part of an L &D practitioners role anyway rather than being heavy duty data. You're going to need some strong data competencies. So that's something that's a direction of travel without a doubt. Otherwise I'm trying to rack my brains. We see things happen in fits and starts but I can't think
Greg Arthur (36:24.923)
Yes.
Andrew Welsh (36:35.576)
anything else that has really caught our attention.
Greg Arthur (36:39.812)
Yeah, I now agree with data as well. Like it's one of the things that when we consult with people, data is one of our major milestones that we talk about and we kind of break it down in terms of what you know already, what you don't know. But then also the bit where I kind of don't see AI helping enough purely because it can't feel, but then it starts getting to a weird kind of terminator too.
is that going to be real kind of thing is interpreting the data in a way of if someone just says, yes, I enjoyed that. And you've got like a hundred people say, yes, I enjoyed this actual data point or yes, this works. It's then starting to go, how did it work? Why did it work? And that's where I think having a data scientist or somebody with a really good data background can come in and say, well, let's dig into this and figure out what bit of what we've just done was really good and why did it work rather than someone just going
Andrew Welsh (37:07.362)
Yeah
Andrew Welsh (37:26.914)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (37:36.367)
These numbers say yes. It's like a spreadsheet can do that. So go beyond that. But yeah, I'm glad you pulled out data because it's interesting to that people are trying to do more than just talk about it, especially if they're starting to look at it as part of people's roles.
Andrew Welsh (37:54.048)
Yeah, I think it comes back to that hallowed ROI and how L &D proves that. That's one of the reasons I think why there's been struggles often in times of uncertainty. The L &D budget is one of the ones, there's always a hiring freeze and then the L &D budget is cut as well. we kind of exist in this perfect storm of...
Greg Arthur (38:17.573)
Oh man, yeah, it's not a storm I like to be in, yeah, it is happening. It is happening.
Andrew Welsh (38:19.926)
No.
No, well, again, I don't want to be a do-monger here, by the way, because we haven't had a particularly bad year. We just had to work harder for everything, you know, to stand still effectively. There is still work out there. We've increased our contract to book. You know, I don't want people to be too downtrodden because there's work out there, there's jobs out there, and, you know, we've managed to have a relatively prosperous year. So, you know, it's not all bad news. It's just...
Greg Arthur (38:26.083)
Eh, not so.
Andrew Welsh (38:52.556)
not shelling peas like it was two or three years ago.
Greg Arthur (38:54.564)
Yeah, yeah, I would say I'm not a paid advertisement but I've used Instinct and they are they are great. They're really nice people and they call you back. So if you're looking for work, give these guys a call. They're lovely. Last couple of questions I had for you as well was again a friend of mine asked me this the other day and said, oh if you're speaking to recruit, can you ask him this? TVs, is there this kind of fictitious recruiter
Andrew Welsh (39:05.006)
Thank you.
Yeah, cool.
Greg Arthur (39:23.684)
kind of level of if it's more than two pages you're not reading it what's the what's the the golden the golden duration
Andrew Welsh (39:28.737)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (39:32.526)
You know what, everyone you speak to, it's quite personal. Everyone you speak to has got their own things that they look for. For me, I always hate it when people don't give a description of what each company... I think the CV should tell a story. Keep it a couple of pages, no more than five I would normally say. So every few years if you've moved around, just try and it down and thin it out. I think every company, talk about what the company are first and foremost and what sector they're in.
And then go into your achievements and you know your responsibilities, but the amount of CVs I'll see whether just assume we know you know what every company is and does and then you've got a keyword match as much as possible because you know what companies actually use AI now to do screening but then you know even if it's internal HR and recruitment people if you've worked on a certain platform name it call it by name people are searching for you on LinkedIn So make sure that detail
in your CV and on your LinkedIn profile and you know if it's the shape or you know just just get those keywords in because you may well just be a keyword hit so that's one of the bits of advice I would always give.
Greg Arthur (40:44.184)
nice one. And is there any advice in general, I guess a bit of advice for potential employers and any advice for potential candidates over the next, what's over the next year? Is there anything you would say to them in today's market that can set them apart from from the rest?
Andrew Welsh (41:01.614)
I think it depends on what the candidate is looking for, I suppose. So certainly if someone's a learning designer, for example, you simply must have a portfolio now. We're seeing clients that have gone from just requesting, have they got any work examples, to they just want interview people if they've not got, yeah, so.
The portfolio, usually best to host it online. Again, all about showing you're working out. So it may not be that you've produced something amazing, but it's just about what's the context? What was your budget? What were the challenges? That sort of thing. And even if you're not a designer, if you're more strategic, maybe put together a portfolio, a PDF for some case studies. Did you have a platform to implement or is there an organisational change?
Again, talking through that, that can be something separate to your CV that you can always kind of use as some collateral prior to an interview. For hiring, I think companies have got an easier time with things attracting candidates at the moment, but the question I would ask is...
What are going to do to make sure they're going to still be there in two or three years? You don't want people using this as a stopgap. So do some proper research into what the salary should be in the marketplace. Don't just offer a lower salary because people are a bit more abundant at the moment. So no value and respect. We are every year, and this is a shameless plug, suppose. Well, it's not actually because it's free, but every year we release a salary and rate guide based upon the data of the preceding year and roles that we've asked to work
Greg Arthur (42:26.915)
You're allowed to.
Andrew Welsh (42:36.452)
on in L &D and so reach out and get that from us, it's free and then you can benchmark your rules properly or just do some wider research before you go into the market.
Greg Arthur (42:48.867)
Yeah, 100%. They can take their own medicine and do a bit of data analysis themselves. well, thank you so much for your time. This is usually bit where we say to people, if there's anything you want to plug, now's the chance to plug it. I know you've mentioned about your salary benchmarking report, but anything else you want to plug, now's your space.
Andrew Welsh (42:53.772)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (43:07.982)
Yeah, fact, so we'll instinct members of the INSTICT team will be at the learning technology exhibition in I should have known when that was to be fair. It's I think it's April or
Greg Arthur (43:19.968)
Yeah, I think it is April.
Andrew Welsh (43:21.35)
April yeah so I think we're about our tenth year there so if any I know a lot of your listeners are probably attending that so if anyone wants to swing by we're usually we get the same standard every year when you go through the main doors you take a left and we're on the outside of the hall so yeah we're always there to have a chat to people and answer any questions they might have about the market.
Greg Arthur (43:43.19)
Lovely. Cool. Well, I'll see you there. I don't know I'm going actually. I will look into it. If I'm there, I'll come and see you. But yes. Well, near enough, near enough. I'll put a clean shirt on and I'll come along. But yeah, I will see you then and everyone else should go and see Instinct. They're lovely people. And thank you so much for your time today. yeah, have a prosperous 2025. Cool. You too.
Andrew Welsh (43:45.912)
Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (43:49.474)
You can have it. Come on. I thought you lived in London anyway. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Welsh (44:09.132)
You too, thank you for having me. Have a great year, must be too soon no doubt. Cheers.
Greg Arthur (44:12.844)
Thank you, sir. Cheers. Bye bye.