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Why AI Can't Replace Recruiters (Yet)

The Chad & Cheese Subscribe Page

From the Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Dean DeCosta joins Chad & Cheese to share fresh recruitment advice. He urges recruiters to challenge norms, verify AI-generated data, and focus on the human touch. DeCosta emphasizes personal branding, as candidates often research recruiters, and suggests exploring platforms beyond LinkedIn to reach diverse talent. He highlights the irreplaceable value of genuine interactions over automation and advocates for a supportive, knowledge-sharing recruiter community.



PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION


Podcast Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors! You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.


[music]


Joel: Good morning. Who are you and why are you here?


Dean Da Costa: My name is Dean Da Costa and I'm here 'cause y'all told me to sit here. No, I'm joking. I'm here at RecFest 'cause myself and Steve Levy are running the Inspire Tent tomorrow and this is a great opportunity to come and give back to our community and help people out.


Joel: I'm sorry, you two are running the Inspire Tent? Is that what you just said?


Dean Da Costa: Yeah, I know it doesn't work together...


Joel: Inspire. Okay.


Chad: Okay.


Dean Da Costa: Yeah. I mean, Steve and I and Inspire, yeah. It's like an oxymoron. Not as bad as military intelligence but close.


Chad: What did he call you? Anyway, so if you...


Dean Da Costa: I said oxymoron, not he's a moron.


Chad: I know, I know. Well, I don't know.


Dean Da Costa: Although, you never know.


Chad: It could be. So, if you have advice for your peers out there in talent acquisition moving into 2025, what would that advice, that one point nugget of advice be?


Dean Da Costa: Learn. Don't accept norms, break out of the boundaries, don't just do the simple and easy because guess what? Everybody's doing the simple and easy and you're looking for the same people. And why? Get out of it. And I can give an example. Somebody was looking for a bunch of people that have a particular certification, they went to LinkedIn or as Stevie Levy calls it the "Blue Devil", didn't work out so well, asked for help. So, I went out and found a website that has a listing of every CCIE certified person and sent it to her. And then I scraped and sent her the whole list. Don't do the norm, think out of the box. That's the only way you're gonna succeed. Great, there's AI. We'll get into that later. But you can't trust it totally. So, you have to use it, double-check it, triple-check it and then you're good. Now, in case you're wondering why I said that about AI, there's no C-3PO behind me, there's no such thing as AI except for the one where it's actually intelligent.


Joel: All right, let's keep focused here, Dean.


Dean Da Costa: Hey, he's opening the door.


[laughter]


Joel: You made your name on sourcing, I think that's fair to say and I don't think a lot of people connect sourcing with branding. Is there a connection? And talk about that in detail.


Dean Da Costa: Yes, there is a connection. So, branding, marketing, a lot of it, in order to get good people, you've gotta get them interested. You've gotta have your brand or the brand of the company. You've gotta put it out there. An example is, if I go ahead and contact a job developer and they see, "Wow, you're working at this company and you've been doing it 30 years," my brand is good, they know who I am, they're more likely to get ahold of me than somebody who works at some company nobody knows and has only been recruiting or sourcing for a year or two. So, branding and sourcing is important because your name carries weight. If you brand yourself properly, you're likely to get many more people willing to talk to you than you would if you don't have branding. There are some recruiters and sourcers not even on LinkedIn and then they wonder why people don't wanna respond to their emails 'cause they don't know who you are. 90% of the people out there are gonna check your profile. If you're not branded properly and it doesn't show like you think you know what you're doing, they're not going to... They don't need to, there's too many out there that are.


Joel: So, you're talking about more of a holistic brand and not an employer brand as being the focus for the sourcing community.


Dean Da Costa: Yeah, 'cause we're talking sourcing in general rather than... Your own... Like I said, 90% of all people are gonna check out the sourcer or recruiter, whoever's contacting them and then once they talk to them, the next step is usually with a hiring manager. They're gonna check out the company more and they're gonna check out the hiring manager more, it's just a fact. Social media has made it to where people want to know more about who they're dealing with and part of it it's also because there are a lot of fake people. There's a lot of people from outside the country trying to communicate with them. So yeah, that all matters. I don't care who you work for. You work for Microsoft, that's great, Microsoft, cool but if your personal brand is not... If you don't have Microsoft on there, no, I'm not gonna talk to you and if your personal brand says, okay, I work for Microsoft but you have no other experience, you've been there a year, why? They're more likely, according to statistics, to find a different recruiter at Microsoft who's been there longer and has a better brand and then contact them about it. It's just a fact.


Chad: So, let's pivot real quick. Let's pivot into 2024.


Dean Da Costa: I'm over 60, I don't pivot very well.


Chad: It's a slow pivot, I know.


Dean Da Costa: Yeah, very.


Chad: It's a slow pivot. So, 2024, what surprised you the most this year? What's happened this year?


Dean Da Costa: What surprised me the most, I think, is the... What's the word... The false statement when AI started becoming big that some companies were like, "We got AI, we don't need as many recruiters, we don't need this, we need that," and then it took, what? I think just now they're starting to realize, "Yeah, that's not the truth." You still need... You might be able to make things quicker, a recruiter or a sourcer might be able to handle a few more recs but again, AI is not going to, at this point anyway, be able to replace it. And so, what amazed me is that the companies were thinking that given we've... It seemed like every seven years something comes out and they think, "Oh wow, we don't need as many recruiters and sourcers now," and then they find out they're wrong. I mean, it seems like every seven to 10 years that happens since I've been in the industry. Every seven to... "Oh, we got sourcing tools now, we don't need as many recruiters." Eh, wrong. "Oh, we got CRMs, we don't need as many recruiters." Eh, wrong. And that's what amazes me is that companies continue to make the same mistake over and over and over again. You would think they've learned by now.


Joel: Do you really believe the future is the same amount or more recruiters and not less?


Dean Da Costa: I think what they would do might change some, but I don't see there being... Those companies that want to be successful aren't gonna have a decrease, they can't and I'm gonna tell you exactly the reason why. Statistically speaking, 78% of all candidates, if they get a call or an email and they know it's not a human being, will not respond and will never respond. I don't and I get calls all the time. And if I say hello and I can tell it's a bot, I hang up and if I get an email and I can tell it's a bot, I reply back, "Okay. If you're really interested, try getting me in with a human being."


Joel: So, the pushback on that would be, what if you can't tell the difference and is that where we're going as well?


Dean Da Costa: Well, when we get to that point, I'll let you know. But so far, it's not.


[laughter]


Dean Da Costa: There are actually tools that can tell you if it is or not. People, I think, forget recruiting and sourcing falls under good or bad HR. What's the keyword in HR? Human, not robot, not AI, human. If you want me, I wanna know you want me and if you want me, then take five minutes out of your life to call me and let me know you want me, not have some robot do the job for you. This isn't...


Chad: That was Cheap Trick, wasn't it? I want you to want me.


Dean Da Costa: What? What did you say?


Joel: Cheap Trick, yeah. Let's bring up old bands from the '70s and '80s.


Chad: Cheap Trick, I want you to want me.


Dean Da Costa: Yeah. Exactly. I know that band very well.


Joel: So, we've talked about the black hole for a long time, resumes go in and nothing comes back out. And technology has at least changed the fact that something comes out, a conversation, automated replies which we've heard for a long time that that was favorable to hearing nothing. But what I'm hearing you say is that a robotic or automated response now is worse than maybe the black hole or am I reading that wrong?


Dean Da Costa: Yes and no. Back then, correct, that was better than nothing. Times have changed, though. There's a specific... Back then, you could write an email, "Hey, I work for Microsoft. Come work for us." They'd be like, "Oh, yeah." Now, "No, no, no. Wait a minute, I don't care if you work for Microsoft. What can you do for me?" Well, what you can do for me isn't a robot calling. That tells me you don't really care, you don't wanna do anything for me and you don't really care because you're having a robot do it. If you care, people wanna be wanted. Robots, really? I don't wanna be wanted by a robot or an AI or whatever you wanna call it.


Chad: So, moving into 2025, what do you think the focus is gonna be for you and the industry? Is it gonna change, same place, different time?


Dean Da Costa: I think what's gonna happen is as companies, and I'm already starting to see it, realize that based on what they're doing now and the people they have now, they're hitting on the same group of people over and over and over and over and over again and meanwhile, that same group of people... I will give you an example, 700 million on the LinkedIn, 3.5 billion on Facebook. Hint and a half. Not everybody's on LinkedIn, time to get up but there's companies that swear by LinkedIn. I'm like, how many hires did you make last year? "Oh, we made 20. We did great." I go, okay, help you out. I made 20 in a month without LinkedIn. What's your point? I'm not looking for the people on LinkedIn and I think companies are gonna start realizing more and more all these tools are looking, including the AI tools, in the same places. There are other places to look, many other places to look. I mean, you know how many people don't even look at IEEE anymore? Electrical engineering group. Well, I do. I have the entire database. Scraped it. I got bored one day. Half of them aren't on LinkedIn. GitHub, 60% of people on GitHub are not on LinkedIn. So, what are we doing? People need to understand there are other places to look than just LinkedIn or wherever else they're looking 'cause most of them are...


Joel: Speaking of where to look, Dean, if our listeners and viewers wanna connect with you, where should they find you?


Dean Da Costa: Okay. If y'all can't find out how to contact me and you're a recruiter, sourcer or marketing, sales, you need a new job.


[laughter]


Chad: You don't deserve.


Joel: Get off my lawn.


[laughter]


Dean Da Costa: Just type in Dean Da Costa, Search Authority. The first 10 pages are me and everyone has an email address and I'm more than willing to take time to talk to anybody, to help anybody about whatever you need. I put about 20 hours a week outside just to try to help people.


Joel: Dean, thanks for hanging out.


Chad: Thanks so much.


Dean Da Costa: Oh, no problem.


Joel: Have a fun show.


Dean Da Costa: I still want my beer.


[laughter]


Podcast Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away and like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

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