#43 - Peer-to-Peer Learning for Talent Acquisition - Joe Atkinson

In this episode of the Recruitment Reality Podcast, I am joined by Joe Atkinson, Founder at PURPL, a peer-to-peer learning platform built by talent acquisition for talent acquisition professionals. They specialize in upskilling recruiters with practical, time-efficient & industry relevant training.

The episode delves into Joe's journey from his passion for startups to identifying a gap in professional training for recruiters. PURPL emerges as a solution, offering a platform for recruiters to upskill by learning from top professionals in the tech world. Joe shares insights on the challenges in talent acquisition, the lack of data literacy, and stakeholder management. The discussion also covers how PURPL sources its creators, their motivations, and the unique approach to content authenticity and learnability.

In facing economic downturns with massive tech layoffs, PURPL began assisting displaced professionals by offering free trainings to enhance their employability for their next role. Looking ahead, Joe outlines plans to engage a broader segment of the recruitment industry, emphasizing the importance of fundamental skills. The episode concludes with valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and recruiters. 

Watch on YouTube

RESOURCES:

► Willo: Video Interview Screening Software
► Andrew Wood, COO & Co-founder at Willo
► PURPL: Peer-to-Peer Learning Platform for Talent Acquisition
► Joe Atkinson, Founder at PURPL

Transcript

0:05

Hi everybody. Welcome to this week's edition of the Recruitment Reality Podcast. I'm delighted to be joined by Joe Atkinson from Purpl, who has essentially started an organization, a business, a platform, whatever you want to call it. That really excites me. So obviously my background, recruitment and training. I absolutely love the idea of having a peer to peer platform that helps recruiters kind of professionalize their own capability because it is a A massively underserviced, profession. Uh, you know, people don't talk about it in school. People don't talk about sales either, which is my number one passion, but people don't talk about recruitment. They don't, you know, give you training. There's very little in the way of sort of, um, professional training that you can actually get access to. So really excited to hear more, Joe, I guess over to you for a bit of an introduction, if I haven't stolen your, your thunder already. Yeah, no, I think you're, uh, pretty spot on and good intro. I guess a very quick introduction to who I am. My background or original passion is really like startups before it was recruitment. University, I started an accelerator for student led startups, um, loved it, like immersed myself in that world. I got drawn away from it a little bit when I graduated and went into business operations for a slightly larger org, um, and then actually moved to Australia to play cricket and then when I came back I was dead set on working for startups. So, landed my first kind of, um, job in that space in recruitment, right? As many of us do, it's a, it's a career you kind of, uh, get led into in that way. Um, absolutely loved it. Scaling organizations, mainly in Berlin, but across Europe. Um, and then joined a scale up organization myself internally in like a partnerships role, um, and got to work really closely with both the sales team and the sales enablement team. Um, and that really opened my eyes to something that. I'd not seen before, which was sales teams in these high performing organizations are set up to raise the bar like every month, day, week. Um, through a few different ways, like one, I kind of split this between internal and external. Internal, they're very focused on. Reviewing, looking at themselves and learning from each other. What can we take from each other's sales calls? What can we take from each other's, you know, meetings, follow up cadences that's going to help us all improve. Um, and then they pair that with some external content. So, okay, where we have gaps, what's the. Best in industry, you know, what are Oracle, Salesforce, sales teams doing that we can learn from? When I looked at talent acquisition, I didn't really see any of that. I don't feel like they're set up to raise the bar in the same way. Um, and then moving like more into L& D, like how do we, how, how are they being enabled? How are they trying to, trying to raise the bar? I think L& D and talent acquisition is pretty Boring, if I'm totally frank, and it's also a bit one dimensional. We've split L& D between agency and internal recruiting, and that's about as granular as we've got with it. In my opinion, from recruiting for startups and scale ups, I feel like that's a completely different world to like a 10, 000 plus pharmaceutical company. Yes, there are some kind of common best practices, which are true across all industries, But I think in that early stage scaling company, you've got no process and you've got very little resource to do the hiring with, and that fundamentally makes it a different game. So that is what led me on to starting Purpl. And yeah, it's exactly what you said it is. It's a peer to peer learning platform. So we create learning sessions, courses, different bits with, um, leading recruiters in the tech world. We put that on a learning platform for anyone to access and hopefully to, to level up their game with. Nice. Wow. Well, what an interesting way to end up where you are, I guess. What's, um, outside of Purpl, what's been your favorite startup that you've either seen in the accelerator that you made or that you've been involved in? Just a random question to put you on the spot there, sorry. That is a great question. I think, I mean, the coolest one when, uh, starting Accelerator for, you know, for university students, so people very early in their career, is we did manage to get one through, uh, VC funding, and it was basically an Excel alternative for, um, analysts in P or, um, all. related industries. Um, not that that product particularly excites me, but I just think that was a, that was a really cool achievement to help a, uh, help a student led business raise money. That's very cool, from, from a accelerator that you created out of thin air. Um, that's very, very cool. And, are you a batsman or a bowler? Uh, I'm a, I'm a bowling all rounder, although I'm, I'm, I'm retired. I'm retired now. You don't play at all anymore, what a shame. Uh, yeah, I play some like Last Man Stands, which is the equivalent of five side football, but the cricket version. Um, but yeah, running, running a startup and playing, uh, 50 over cricket from a time perspective is, is quite tricky to manage. Agreed. Yeah, I gave up my cricket days long ago, um, because it takes far too long to do anything. Um, and also rain just annoyed the hell out of me, uh, in Britain. It was kind of pointless, like, uh, just sat waiting. It, it, what always fascinated me, just how long you waited before calling off a game of cricket. Um. But there you go, maybe that's why I should have gone to Australia too, that would have been more fun. Um, although I'm guessing you are a significantly higher level, Joe, excuse my ignorance, um, than I ever played. Um, so, so yeah, tell us about the kind of organizations that you are working with, like are there any names that we would know and anything like that? And what's the, what's the common kind of thread of the challenge that they're facing at the moment? Yeah, so we have, um, I guess there's a few different use cases for, for the product and I'll, I'll run through. One by one and try to give some examples as we go. Um, so the first one is, is. Interesting, because I didn't plan it to be this way, it is like the embedded consultancies or embedded recruitment providers, um, that are a little bit different to agency, like they place their recruiters in scale up organizations for, you know, a set period of time, three months, six months, um, to help them with capacity issues, um, in, in their hiring processes. I never set out to build a product for them, but it turns out it's quite helpful for them. Um, so we have the guys at Move and their team have been, have been using the product for a few months. Um, and they're finding it's really helping both enable their teams, but also give them credibility when they're coming into these organizations as well. Um, so we have a few of those clients, um, and then we have the In house folks, um, and there's kind of two avenues in house folks can come to us either as an individual who's kind of Um, maybe a team of one or maybe in a wider team and they have a personal L& D budget And they're looking to improve in certain areas and they feel our platform is a good fit And then we have some, uh TA teams coming on and using it as their enablement platform for their teams. So, uh, Akerks is one who are a London based scale up who are, who are doing that. Um, and this normally comes from a head of TA and it's, it's their decision. So we have, uh, people using a platform from a few different angles, if that makes sense. Yeah. Nice. Okay. And what's the, you know, I guess the market has been pretty tumultuous over the last 12 months to say the least. What are the kind of Common things that, you know, not, not relating to L& D, but just the challenges that people are facing, uh, day to day, like, are they saying the market's really tough or is it clients with overly high expectations? Like, what, what are you actually hearing from your audience? Yeah, so, um, Like, one of the areas of challenges we look at, like, a lot of what challenges are the TA teams actually facing in their org, and yes, for like, from our side, we're looking at L& D and those budgets, which obviously, obviously are impacted, but, um, I think it's a bit more interesting to look at what Challenges, you know, orgs are facing. Um, I think data is a piece which just comes up again and again across nearly everyone, um, we speak to. And that's really not just coming top down, but also bottom up. Like how do we make our team data literate from, from junior to, to mid level, as well as having these top down processes that's making, making everything data driven, um, taking the data from the ATS, you know, we have. Great reporting functionality in a lot of the ATS now, but how do you actually take action on that? How do your mid level junior recruiters who are operational and doing the work? How do they actually feed that into their day to day activities? So, um, that's a really big piece. Um, stakeholder management is a massive piece that we help our users with. Um, in particular, like how, how do they become true? Partners to the business. So rather than just being, you know, an internal service provider of candidates to hiring managers, how do TA as individuals and as a function get themselves at that strategy table and, and become true business partners? So, um, I would actually say that probably most two common problems, challenges, but, um, that we're helping with at the moment. Nice. And how, so, in terms of, like, input into your system. Who's actually, who are the peers that are doing the teaching, you know, and how do you find them? Yeah, so we have over 40 different folks who have delivered at least one learning session on, on the platform. Um, all of whom are either currently or have very recently been working in internal recruitment. This is one of the big things for. Where we feel our platform is slightly different to other training providers is the content isn't delivered by someone who was in recruitment 5, 10, 15 years ago and has now become a trainer. They're from people who still are in recruitment now and have a pulse on what current best practice is in 2024 as, as we're recording this. Um, and they're all, um, fairly senior, so they've got experience that they can share. Um, but often they're not. Uh, always like VP, um, level at big organizations. We also want the people who are close to our operational work. So, um, we work a lot with like principal lead levels who, um, are working at a senior level, but have a really good pulse on what operational excellence looks like. And, you know. Sourcing, Interviewing, Candidate Experience, these kind of areas, um, and we have a mix from bigger tech companies who can help, um, the folks at earlier stage companies with what processes have we built that you're now building, um, and we have some people who are probably more recently going through that scaling phase as well, um, where people feel they can directly relate to their situations. So, um, yeah, that's a bit of a summary of who we've got on there. Yeah, awesome. And so, and how do you find them though, like do they come to you or do you go to them? Yeah, so when, when we started, it was a little bit from my own network, who, who, who do I know in, uh, NTA who, who might be willing to do this. And maybe a little bit similar to yourself when you're starting a podcast. You just sort of do a little bit of outreach and, and see who's interested. Um, that was probably. A little bit more extended in the outreach we needed to do because there's a little bit more time goes into creating a learning session than a podcast. so the start, network, referrals, bit of outreach, um, we're now in a great position where for the last I don't know, three, four, five months. Uh, we've not had to reach out to anyone. We either get people doing repeat sessions who, who have done sessions and, and have been well liked on the platform, um, we have referrals from those people and we have quite a few people coming inbound to us as well, um, who we can sort of do a little bit of a screening process on and then, and then choose to build a session with them if, if it's a match from both sides. Nice. Okay, that's really interesting. And why, why do they do it? Are they, I take it, do you give them, like, uh, a commission for the number of courses that people enrol to, or, you know, are they just doing it to build their profile, or is it kind of a mixture of different reasons? Yeah, it's a little bit of a mixture. So like most of the engagements, we create individual learning sessions that might be 20 to 30 minutes. Um, that might take just over an hour of, of time commitment. So we see that. Very similar to doing a webinar, um, where it's a, it's a personal branding piece, um, and then alongside those individual learning sessions, we also have more extended, um, courses, certifications, where there's a lot more upfront building that goes into it, um, and we have some slightly different agreements in place for, for those ones. Nice. And do you have, within the team, do you have, like, L& D specialists that help to make sure the, uh You know, the content is actual learnable content, if that makes sense. Yeah, so we, um, we have worked with a few, like, learning designers to build, like, a skeleton of what these sessions need to look like. are quite conscious of not over engineering that. We want it to remain authentic and peer-to-peer learning is a really big piece of it. So we want it to feel like you're learning from a colleague versus learning from a trainer. Um, so we've tried to sort of meet in the middle between like understanding how people learn, how sessions can be designed to be engaging and give people things they can take away versus it being authentic, organic, and. Super practical and industry relevant as well. So, um, we spoke to those people up front and then we've, we've taken some of that learning, but we haven't over engineered it. We, we, we really want it to be authentic still. Nice. Okay, great. Well, it sounds, it sounds amazing. And I know, obviously you launched probably the most difficult time for recruiters, especially in the tech space, right? Lots of layoffs and people really struggling to, sit in internal recruitment seats for, you know, long periods of time. Um, how often is it that you're finding people actually outside of organizations are coming to upskill so that they can maybe interview better? Have you, have you thought about, you know, helping connect those people as well to opportunities from within the platform itself? Like, how are you, how are you helping those people that have been displaced by the current economic challenges? Yeah. So our focus from a monetization point is like people in roles, um, um, Organizations and that's the focus for anyone who has been Uh hit by layoffs or is out of a role effectively is out of work. Um, we Give them training for free so they can just reach out to us Let us know what they want to upskill in for the next role Maybe they like we said want to be more data literate want to be more of a strategic partner Maybe they want to improve their sourcing interviewing whatever it is Pick a skill reach out to us and we Create them a Notion page with different learning sessions on, taken from our platform, um, where, where they can upskill and, um, yeah, we're not, we're not too interested in taking their money really. So we did that all throughout last year since we launched and we're still doing now. Um, it's not necessarily a formal program, but, but we've, we've pushed it on LinkedIn a few times and, um, people can still access that. Just reach out, uh, to me via email or on LinkedIn is probably the best way to take advantage of that. Amazing. Well, big shout out. For that then, you know, hopefully, uh, somebody hears this that's looking for a role at the moment, and please reach out to Joe, get some content, and, uh, and hopefully it'll help, you know, help you in your future job search. So, uh, so yeah, and look, monetizing that would be Way worse than, uh, letting those people have it for free and then when they find a job, uh, I'm sure there will be some loyalty and value that they have, right? Uh, in terms of the kind of network effect, so it makes sense. we have had a few of those use cases as well where people have done the training and they've reached out to us saying, you know, it's helped them feel more confident in interviews and they've gone on to land a job. Of course, not taking full responsibility of that, but if we can help a little bit, um, and that's great. And like you said, a few people have then chosen to sign up for the platform once, once they're in work. So, um, yeah, 100 percent reach out to us and, um, We will give you some free training. Amazing. So what's the plan for the future, Joe? Where does Purpl go next? so I think looking at last year, what we've done an okay to good job at is serving the segment of recruiters who are, I would say, naturally inquisitive, so they want to learn, they want to improve, they're always looking at ways they can raise the bar. I think our platform serves them quite well. What, uh Big challenges I would say for this year is what about the rest of the recruitment world? Um, I don't have an exact figure on like what percent are like these, um, inquisitive always wanting to learn recruiters and what's the rest, but I think the rest are actually the majority. Um, so how do we engage them and how do we get them, um, learning, improving, raising the bar, um, on a consistent basis as well. And this is kind of a challenge across L& D, right, is engagement and not just upfront engagement, but engagement across like an extended period of time. So we're working on how we can provide different kind of learning environments, blended learning to really engage like. the entire internal market within our kind startups and scale ups, and not just kind of the most engaged recruiters. And that, um, that's not a small challenge. So that's going to be, uh, going to be our main focus for this year. Amazing. Okay, awesome. Well, it's good to hear. So, obviously, you've created, uh, created a platform full of peer to peer learning and advice, essentially. Um, I always like to wrap up recordings with Um, some advice. So I guess there's three groups of people that you could, uh, be qualified to give advice to. One is, um, actually just other startups. You know, you've, you've passionately been involved in startups for a long time. So it'd be lovely to hear if you've got any advice for other people thinking about, Um, starting their own business. Second is obviously recruiters themselves, so what's been the kind of core themes that you've seen and, and that they should be focusing on, uh, for the year ahead. And then finally, if you've got anything for candidates as well, so just people that are out there looking for a job at the moment. Pick one of those three groups. You don't have to give me advice for all three. That would be mean. Cool, I can probably do the first two fairly quickly because the first one, I'm certainly no, uh, business expert. This is my first business. I've made tons of mistakes. I'm going to make tons more. Um, what I would say if you're transitioning from being a recruiter, as I was, to thinking about starting your own business. You're not sure about doing it is like, what, what, what do you have to lose? Um, was, was my thought process in that if it goes to shit, sorry, I don't know if you can swear on this podcast, but if it goes to shit, um, in six, 12 months, you can always go back to being a recruiter. And it's probably a great time to do that because six or 12 months, the market's probably going to be in a little bit better, better of a spot. And there hopefully won't be such a massive oversupply of, of TA talent on the market. So. Why not give it a go, is my only call to action there. Advice for internal recruiters I'll go for, um, and I think usually people will look at advice for TA teams or TA leaders here. I spend a lot of time speaking to, like, mid level IC recruiters, and I feel like they're probably the most underserved. We look at onboarding and first couple years of recruitment a lot, and then we look at strategic heads of TA, guiding a TA function a lot. I feel the folks in the middle are probably a little bit Uh, confused about what they should, should focus on and from speaking to loads of them, I would say like don't overcomplicate things, I time and time again hear like they're moving on to very complicated topics, um, on like advanced DEI metrics, uh, reporting, automation, AI, all these different tools, um, where Really, they're still not absolutely nailing like the kickoff process, conducting a forest search, screening really well and creating a great candidate experience. I think if you can do those things really well, um, you're in a great position and then later start thinking about the more complex things, um, would be the one, the one thing that springs to mind from recent conversations. Yeah, I totally agree. There's a, there's another episode that, um, absolutely agrees, which is, uh, don't neglect the things that you've done for, you know, 20 years, uh, and doing them well. So, listen back to that episode as well if anybody wants some extra advice around, you know, what recruiters can be doing to just get the basics and nail them out of the park. Um, So yeah, I totally agree. That would, that would be my advice. And then on the, you know, it's easy to say as an entrepreneur because usually you're quite risk averse as an individual. Not risk averse, risk, whatever the dyslexia kicking in, you're risk averse. Open, open to a lot of risk. Um, so you, you know, it's easy to say what could you, what, what, what is there to lose? And I think, you know, the reality is like in the six months, I'm sure that you've been running your own business. You probably learned more than you did in six years doing the other job, right? Same for me at Willo, uh, versus my previous role. And. It just makes you more employable. So like I say, even if it does fail, it will only make you more employable in the future. Um, so, so yeah, look, Joe, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Uh, really appreciate your time. It's been great to talk to you and I really love, uh, as I said, what you're doing. as a business, and I wish you the best of luck with it. Awesome, thanks Woody. Feel, feel the same way about what you're building as well, it's great. So yeah, thanks for having me on. thanks Joe. If people want to get in touch, what's the best way for people to contact you? Yeah, you can either go through the website which is go Purpl spelled p u r p l dot io or reach out to us on on LinkedIn. I still spend a lot of my life on there so we'll be able to get back to you pretty quickly. Amazing. Great. Thank you very much, Joe. And thank you everybody for listening. Um, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and like our Spotify and all of that wonderful stuff. Um, and everybody have a good week. We'll speak again soon. Thanks, Joe. Take care, mate. You too.