Hello, hello, everyone. Welcome. Welcome. I can see people filtering in. Hello. Hello. Let's give it one more minute, and then we will get started just to let people filter in. Alright. Okay. Let's get this show on the road. So welcome everyone to today's webinar focusing on talent acquisition priorities for twenty twenty six. My name is Tara Bodicott. I am the director of strategic account management here at PageUp. So I'm very excited to be facilitating today's panel. Couple of housekeeping things first up. If you do have any questions at all throughout the webinar, you can use the q and a section, which is in the bar across the bottom of your screen. Pop any questions that you have in that q and a. We will do our best to answer those through the webinar either in the chat itself, which we've got, a moderator in there or live on the, the panel itself. If there are questions that we can't get to during the webinar, we will follow-up and answer those afterwards as well. There will be a couple of polls through the webinar as well. So, once you see those pop up, please do engage with those, answer them. There'll be great insights for what the group as a whole are thinking on a couple of our topics as well. Alright. So let's get underway with some introductions to our panelists who we have joining us today. And I would love to ask each of our panelists to share a little something about themselves, so their role, a little bit about your organization. And as a little bit of something interesting, if you were to use a song to describe your year in TA in twenty twenty five, what song would that be? So I'm going to throw to Caroline Draper from Michael Hill. Hi. I'm Caroline Draper. I'm the talent acquisition manager for Michael Hill. So we're a global jewelry company, and we've got offices in Canada, New Zealand, and Brisbane. My songs, I'd have to pick two songs, because if you're all recruited online, you'll understand this. First of all, I will survive. And then the next day, it could be it's a beautiful day. I love it. So true. The duality of life in talent acquisition for sure. We also have Ben Stevens from Symboss. Hello. My name is Ben, I'm the Group Manager of Talent Acquisition at Symboss. We're a contact centre business across Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Philippines. As soon as you asked me this question, there was like a song that kind of like jumped into my mind, and I used to annoy my mum with it when I was about ten years old. I don't even know if the song's appropriate for a ten year old to be listening to. But it's, coolio, I'll see you when you get there, and there's like a specific line around, I'll see you when you get there, if you ever get there. That kind of feels like how our year is, is going right now. Yeah. The finish line just keeps moving and moving. A little bit. Just a little bit. I love it. And last but certainly not least, we have Jessica Williams from Village. Hi, everyone. I'm Jess. I'm from Village. So Village Roadshow is a large entertainment company. We have, quite a few different divisions from theme parks to cinema to film distribution. And then if I think about my song, I think similar to to Ben's point, it's more about particular line or a chorus in a song. And so the song that comes to mind for me is Into the Unknown from the Frozen movie. Disney. I love a Disney classic. Awesome. Well, thank you so much to all our panelists for being here today. We've got a really exciting discussion, that I'm sure all our attendees will love hearing. Before we get into our discussion, just in case there's anyone on our webinar who isn't as familiar with PageUp and who we are, we are a global talent acquisition suite provider. Simple terms, we help organizations connect people to their perfect roles. So we've supported more than seven hundred organizations worldwide in our customer base. And over a hundred million people find their opportunities in their careers. I've got a team of over three hundred. We work across Australia, North America, and Europe. We have one hundred and sixty partners in our kind of marketplace partner network. And we have that healthy ecosystem that really drives those people outcomes through technology. Our TA suite has three key areas. Recruitment marketing, so that attract, engage at the top of the funnel for both new and returning candidates. A global applicant tracking system, guiding people from application all the way through to the onboarding solution so they're ready to do their best work from day one. And we're really proud to work with, a variety of organizations of all sizes, all industries, across our our network. And as you can see from the g two review badges that we've got, you know, our customers really do, value the partnership and what we're able to work with them to achieve. Now what you're here to hear all about today, we'll dive into our panel conversation. To kick things off, we'll stop sharing the slides, and we're gonna launch our first poll for our audience. So the poll that's gonna pop up, what's been your organization's biggest talent acquisition challenge in twenty twenty five? So whilst those poll results come through, let's throw that over to our panel. So to our panel, if you were to reflect on twenty twenty five, firstly, what's been your biggest challenge in TA? And on the flip side, what's been your biggest strategic win? So Caroline, let's start with you. I think probably over the last year we had really manual processes in TA. So it just took a lot of time for TA to work through the candidates to fill the roles. And then recently, probably about eight weeks ago, we actually optimized PageUp and we utilize their integration project, which now seamlessly links through to payroll. So as soon as people come into the business, they automatically go into PageUp. As soon as they exit, they leave PageUp. So it's just it's helped so much. I'd say it's a great experience for the hiring managers. It makes it a lot easier for myself and the talent team, and we've done that globally. So I think that's been a great win for us. Excellent. And it really helps then everybody focus on the more value add activities as well. Absolutely. Exactly. And Ben, what about you at Symboss looking back on twenty twenty five? I think the biggest challenge for us is the formation of a new group company. So my role has moved into that, and we now support I now support TA teams that deliver across four countries. There's established businesses and two startups in that, so that's really exciting and a massive challenge. And it's really been about lifting the thinking from a local perspective to a more global perspective. We had two kind of key wins. We've extended PageUp, like, globally, so that's been fantastic for those teams. But we've also formed a strategic partnership with Vrbo who are supporting us with all our skills assessments, which, again has been, yeah, a great win for us this year. Big year, it sounds like. Very big year. Yes. Cleaning off a dear life. Absolutely. Well, we're on the downhill stretch now. We're nearly there. And, Jess, what about you at Village looking back over this year? There's a lot been happening here at Village over the last year. There has been a couple of different restructures and movement of teams across different divisions. So I guess the challenge with that is at the start of the year, we were looking at reviewing all of our communication, kinda getting the status quo on our just recruitment function and where we're at and what our goals were. And then over the course of the years, we've we've had over the course of the year, we've had a little bit of movement. So just trying to keep track on that has probably been our biggest challenge. But I guess our biggest win on the flip side of that is that we have been able to make some significant improvements with automation in the systems and integrations as well as transitioning our recruitment process to kind of a more skills and candidate focused approach, which we're still in the the infancy phase there, but it's going really well. So really big wins. Fabulous. And looking at our poll results from our audience, some of the core kind of the most common, I guess, challenges that came through, High applicant volumes and quality, skill shortages, retention, internal mobility. So there's definitely a few themes coming through the poll results there as well. We're gonna launch our second poll now. Our first poll was about twenty twenty five. Let's look ahead now in our next poll for what are your top three priorities for twenty twenty six. So, again, while our audience vote in our poll, let's see what our panel think. So what are your top priorities and also maybe the biggest pressure points that you're gonna be looking at in twenty twenty six? So maybe Ben, we'll start with you. Yeah. I've probably got three three top priorities. We're gonna be rolling out PageUp's recruitment marketing function globally next year. So we wanna take control of our employer branding, which is gonna be good. We're expanding Vrvo into Fiji this week and then Philippines into early next year, so we'll keep rolling that out. And then the third thing, think, is really encouraging my team to get comfortable with leaning into AI tools. There's a real desire there to want to do it, but there's still a hesitancy. So really kind of supporting them through that and trying to get them ready for what's coming. Pressure points, lean team, high expectations, large scale multinational change management, which is not my bag, ensuring that frameworks are global but can be localised. That's where we're at at the moment. Just a small list of things for twenty twenty six, right? Yeah, yeah, I think it's fine. That'll all be done in January. And Jess, what about you at Billie's? I'm sure it's another big year on the cards next year. Definitely. So I think our major focus for twenty twenty six is our employer branding and our customer our candidate experience. We're majorly focusing on that, and that'll include updating communications, our website, and kind of more focusing on what our candidates want to hear rather than what they only what they need to hear. So yeah. And I'll sneak peek looking at the poll, and it seems like a lot of people are focusing on that next year too, Jess. And what about you, Caroline? What's on the cards for Michael Hill next year? Yeah. Same as with Jess. We're really looking to focus on our candidate experience, looking at our branding. So we'll be looking at exit interviews, retention strategies, just to make sure we are keeping the excellent caliber of candidates that we are attracting. Secondly, we'll be rolling page up out to all hiring managers globally. So they don't have the the full access to it as yet. So that will be great. So we just need to make sure that doesn't turn into too much of a pressure point for us and make sure that's nice and seamless. And then similar to what Ben said, I've got a fabulous but a very lean TA team. So just make sure that we all keep going as strong as we have been so far. Absolutely. And looking at our poll results, there's definitely some common themes to what our panel have been talking about. Candidate experience and employer branding are up there, Embedding AI and automation. Quality of hire are always a hot topic of how we support getting the right hires. So there's definitely some common themes. And hopefully for our audience, through our discussion today, you'll get to hear some of our insights from our panel on some of those topics as well. Alright. So that's really good context to kick off our conversation, and we're gonna delve into some of those areas in a little bit more depth. And we're gonna start with technology and AI because I think that's a hot topic in the industry at the moment. And everyone's at a different stage when it comes to AI adoption. Every organization has, you know, a a different stance and position around AI, different points of their journey. So, Ben, let's start with you. How would you summarize your experience with AI so far, and have there been any standout wins or learnings? What's on the cards in that space for you? Yeah. It's a fun space, isn't it? I think it's I think it really excites me at the moment. We I think exploration probably summarizes the keywords for us. PageUp are releasing or have just released AI functionality, which supports our skills first approach. Vrvo is AI driven in how it assesses skills. I think, like most people in this space, I've had hundreds of conversations with copilot, chat GPT to kind of figure out, you know, what it can do, how it thinks. I think for me, now outside of that with such a lean team is really leaning into what we already have access to. So what I mean by that is, you know, looking at AI agents within Copilot and creating, yeah, things that the team can use to either create efficiency or in the absence of a function. So a couple of, you know, a couple of examples of that is I've created an AI agent that has access to all of our position descriptions. It can go off and find a position description. It can assess, review, rewrite. It can write whole new position descriptions, and it can assess for task and responsibility crossover amongst PDs in a particular function or across the group. Then if I give you an example of the, you know, in the absence of a function, we don't currently have a group branding and marketing team just yet. So can we create an AI agent that is built on our corporate voice that my team can use to create marketing campaigns that stay consistent to that voice in the absence of a team. So it's really just playing around with stuff and then just giving the team access to see if they can break it and, you know, do what they need with it. So, yeah, that's kind of where we're at. Think experimentation is is something that's really key to think about and think about what's the objective for your organization and being purpose with why you're doing it and then being willing to try things, I think, as well. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And, Jess, what about at Village? What's kind of the the appetite for AI within Village? What have you seen and heard so far? There's a lot going on here at Village around AI. We just had a an eight week campaign run by our IT team to immerse the business into AI and give us different solutions for different ways of working, which was wonderful. Certainly opened up a lot of possibilities for us. Since then, we've definitely experimented with, you know, ChatJPY, Copilot. Copilot's a part of our everyday life now, which is great. And we're also setting the scene to launch some chatbots. We're also working with Workato at the moment to get a lot of automation happening between all of our systems as well as organizing some order automation for some administration tasks within the team, which hopefully will allow us to put some more time into value adding activities. I guess in addition to that, I think one thing I look forward to to seeing next year or to see how it plays out is, you know, everyone is using AI. We use AI in our systems, in our software, and candidates are using AI to create their resumes and do their applications. So I kinda see a little bit of a battle between candidates and and employers coming into next year to see, you know, whose AI is gonna outsmart the other person's AI, but we'll we'll see how that plays out. It'll be quite interesting, I think. Absolutely. And I it's not going anywhere either. So I think working then at how we navigate it is what the reality of, you know, our industry is, I think. And that's actually a really good segue because I think AI is not influencing only TA teams, but also candidates, like you said, Jess. And that's mean that candidate expectations are shifting. We're seeing lots of AI generated applications. That's what hearing from our customers that that's becoming a something that's becoming increasingly common. I'm keen to hear from our panel, how are your teams managing the rise in those AI generated resumes, responses? How are you navigating this as you head into next year? Maybe Caroline, let's start with you at Michael Hill. Yeah, definitely. We've certainly seen a huge increase in AI resumes, so much so. One of my team was saying the other day that they practically had the same CV from two totally different candidates. That would obviously be an AI generated. So this is just happening. It's not going to stop. But what we've done, certainly with the IT roles, is I did sit down with the IT guys just to make sure we were really targeted in our skills questions. We were making sure they were coming in face to face interviews so we could really validate what they were saying on the resume as much as we could do. And then also tailoring the reference checks that we are sending out to make sure we're getting the responses that we actually need to. Because Jess, you're right. It's just going be the battle of AIs next year. So it'll be an interesting space to watch for sure. Yeah. And humanizing the right moments in your process still so that you've got human based decision making at the key point is definitely something that I think is the the balancing act as AI becomes increasingly common. Yeah. Definitely. And, Ben, what about at Symboss? Is that something that you've seen, and how are you and your team navigating that? Yeah. I think it's everywhere. I'd I'd I'm I'm quite optimistic about it. I think it's gonna happen. It's absolutely inevitable. I think it's a large part of why we've moved to skills based assessments. So, you know, instead of fighting it, just lean into changing a process or or implementing something new. So the it's particularly valuable in, like, technical roles. If everyone is saying they've got a skill, fantastic. Prove it. And then they can come in and and test that again at the the next stage interview. So, yeah, I think it's it's been an interesting one, but that's the way that we're kind of tackling it. Yeah. Absolutely. Let's see it as an opportunity, and then how do you leverage AI to navigate your process and get the right outcomes? Absolutely. And Jess, what about village? It sounds like it's, you know, something that we're all navigating. What are you doing in that space to to tackle the reality of AI generated applications? I think it's definitely here to say. So the battle isn't gonna go away anytime soon. I think similar to more of what Ben said is that because we have moved to more towards a more skill based approach, it is making it a lot easier to to assess things that way. I do think sometimes the resumes can be if they're too, you know, AI inflated and have a lot of bold going on, it does make it harder for us humans to read them. So I am kind of aware of that, you know, if every second word is highlighted or bold or or whatnot. But I think just having genuine conversations with candidates is the way to navigate that. Because anyone can put anything on a resume at the moment, especially if they're using the same prompts in chat GPT. So, yeah, just having that genuine connection to your candidate and asking the right questions, assessing their skills for what for what they are is is our approach. And I say at this point, it is definitely working, so we're gonna continue with that momentum. Absolutely. And you're right, Jess. Like, people have been able to put whatever they want on their resume for years. It's just that AI is making that easier. So we just have to apply the skills that we've always had just potentially more frequently. So I absolutely agree. And we have also seen and hearing a lot about candidate expectations shifting, expecting more kind of personalized, even like consumer grade experiences to be treated like a customer through a recruitment process, what are you doing within your organizations to kind of create those meaningful experiences for your candidates? And maybe Jess, we'll start with you at Village. Oh, it's definitely really important to us. I think that our candidate expectations have changed quite a lot. And I think, you know, the old saying is, you know, if they want a job, they'll they'll just get over it or or they'll just do it. That way of thinking is definitely in the past. Candidates are looking for a more personalized approach. They're wanting to know a lot more about the business, have more frequent communication. And and when they're applying, they're not just applying for for a job and a salary and some benefits. They're really interested in what the working culture is like. What's the leadership style? So I guess a challenge for us is, we're we're trying to focus on how we communicate that back out to our candidates so that they get a genuine experience of understanding who we are and what we do and what it might be like to work with us. I think another challenge with candidate expectations is work flexibility and and whether that be, you know, a hybrid way of working or working completely remotely. That that's that's something that's here to say, especially with Gen Z millennial applicants. That's really important to them. So, yeah, we're just looking at ways that we can communicate our culture and get that across to our candidates. Yeah. And I think what I'm hearing is, like, understanding what matters most to your candidates is key as well so that you can communicate that to them through your process as well. Yes. And Caroline, what about at Michael Hill? What are what are what are you putting in place to kind of create those experiences? So I think, as we said, it's a lot about personalization. So employees want to know about the brand. They want to connect with us. They want to know what it's like to work with us. So I think we've really got to tailor our communication. So we'll send out documentation with the interview guide saying, you know, an introduction to Michael Hill Group. We'll do YouTube videos. Recently, I was interviewing for a HR business partner, and I had four interviews. And of the candidates, three out of the four had interviewed for other companies prior. And after the interview, they hadn't heard from that organization again, which was just shocking. They'd spent time visiting that company. So I think with our brand, we've just got to make sure that we are speaking to communicate speaking to the candidates. It's clear communication all the way because even if a candidate doesn't get a role in our company, I always say this to the team and the hiring managers. I want them to walk away thinking that was a great experience because at the end of the day, they're still going to be or could potentially be a Michael Hill customer. So I want them to have the best experience possible. And that's when we send out the the questionnaire to say, what was your experience like? So at least we can tailor it accordingly or move it if we do need to in future. That's a really good call out, Caroline, that thinking about that your candidates today, even if they don't become an employee, are still your customer. So you've got both your employer brand, but also your consumer brand at stake when you're interacting with your candidates as well. And then tell me about your group interview experience for your contact center roles because I know you've been putting a lot of work into that experience for your candidates as well. Yeah. Just trying to, I guess, change it up a little bit. You know, contact center recruitment in the volume space can be brutal. The there's a lot of urgency. We don't get a lot of, you know, lead in time, and that urgency can, you know, impact candidate experience because it feels rushed. You know, people are under pressure. So with the implementation of Vrvo, again, you know, we look at core skills to assess core skills straight away. So we already know they've got the core skills to be able to do a role. So then what we've done is changed our group interview to be a more team building exercise. So the conversion rates now we have, Vrbo, are so much higher. So we actually know most people that come to group interview are likely to be a yes. So we now get them to connect with leaders, with their trainers, they get more information about the organization, and then they get to get to create connections with each other. And through that, straight into day one, a lot of them are already friends. They all have already made connections there. And it's, you know, it's not rocket science. It it just kinda makes sense that you can use your candidates and their connections to create better experiences overall. So we're seeing, you know, a lot more day one attendance and a lot more engagement in the first two weeks of training. So, yeah, so far so good. Helping create some stickier hires, I guess, well for Yeah. Hoping to. Yeah. Excellent. And we've just talked about candidate experience expectations. Let's build on that and then expand that to thinking about employee branding and our talent marketing because I think those expectations really shape how those candidates interact with our brands. And we are seeing those consumer grade expectations become the norm. You know, recruitment is becoming increasingly more like marketing. TA has to think like marketers in a lot of those attraction strategy sessions. Jess, this is a space that I know you've been working on. You've got lots of plans for. How are you seeing talent attraction evolve at Village and and that marketing mindset kind of embedding itself in in your world? It's definitely really important to us. I think we have a brand that is very much known throughout the country, and we also are in the industry of entertainment. So when people think of Village Roadshow, they think of fun, entertainment, wow factor. And so our biggest challenge, currently in into next year is kind of refining what our in employer branding is. Who we are, what we do, how we do it. I think anytime someone applies to a role here at Village, they may have some preconceived expectations on what it might be like. And our role is to make sure that once they have applied, they know exactly what it would be like. So that is involving things like updating our websites, our career, our careers page, our communications that go out to candidates similar to what Caroline was saying when they've applied. Hey. This is what you can expect when applying for a job here at Village. You know, just showcasing at different areas of our business because, you know, working at a cinema is very different to working at a theme park or in film distribution within an office. So just trying to showcase that as much as we can. And I guess as part of that, the biggest thing we're we're trying to focus on is what can we do to make sure that the candidates have the best experience possible. Even if they don't end up here at Village, they're still gonna know our brand and hopefully be a customer of ours like Carolyn says. So I'm just trying to focus on what we want our candidates to know, but also what information our candidates expecting us expecting from us and then kinda have a caveat in between there. And then I guess the other thing is just to know once we've decided on something and implement it, candidate expectations and experience changes over time. So just making sure that we're we're we're checking back in to see, is it working? How well is it working? And different things like that. Yeah. And I think as well we're seeing that real need for authenticity. So like you're saying, what what's the difference in working in, you know, village theme parks versus cinemas and hearing the the reality and hearing that from actual voices from the organization, whether that's day in the life type content. So I think that really helps shape the realistic job picture and the realistic, I guess, impression of the employer brand that a candidate can walk away with. Excellent. And Caroline, you've been in an interesting situation over the last kind of twelve, eighteen months where you've had two brand experiences that you and your team have been having to navigate. How do you manage the, I guess, the branding, the experience when you've got two distinct brands that you're navigating? Yeah. It's really interesting. And I think like you say, you do have to think more of the marketing side as well. So gone are the traditional TA recruitment days. So we've got Michael Hill, which is more of a, I guess, high end, refined, classic jewelers. And then we've got Bevels that's quite young and fun and quirky. So it's making sure that we get the right employees for both brands. But then it's really I'm very fortunate with my team because they work with their own brands. However, because we are such a small and tight team, we're very good at sharing candidates. So if they'll interview someone, be like, actually, you're Bevils. We'll be able to talent pool across both brands, which really does help us. So that works well. And I think, you know, it's just making sure that we've got the right people in the right business, but then also doing that talent mobility across the stores as well. Absolutely. And in our poll earlier, a lot of our audience mentioned skills, internal mobility is hot topic. So let's pivot to having a chat about that area. We know skills are becoming more and more central to how we hire, how we recruit, and also how we develop our talent. So Jess at Village, what have you been doing around kind of skills based approach to TA? We've been doing quite a lot in that space. We have implemented quite a few things. I think one of the biggest things that we have implemented that has made quite a significant difference is the way we evaluate our interviews rather than judging someone's on their ability to do the job now. We're we're writing a candidate on their ability or or the candidate's potential, I should say, to do that role. And it's really making a lot of difference. I think one thing that is making that or has aiding us in in in that successful piece is the fact that we do have learning and development options here that we can utilize to help people as they come and they're onboarded into our business, and also that support for managers as well. Because I'm sure if you ask every manager, they they want someone ready to go now, just jump in, run away with all of the tasks and things like that, but it's not always like that. So just supporting them in that process about what it might look like for the first couple of months with a skills based candidate that's entered into that role versus what they're they're kind of used to is also really important. We're also looking at similar to what Ben was talking about integrating some software that's really gonna make it easier for us to identify those skills before we get to the interview stage. That is a little bit of a work in progress, and we'll be focusing on that probably in the first quarter of next year. But I'm really excited. I think we'll make a really significant difference to the quality of candidates that that are coming into the business. But, also, there is a communication piece and a challenge for for managers to kinda get on board with a new way of working. So it has been working really well, and we're just really wanting to to keep that momentum up and the manager's spirits high. It's a mindset shift for them, isn't it? You know? It's a lot of them have been focused on degrees, qualifications for so long that it's a big fundamental different approach for them. Yeah. Definitely. And Ben, know Symboss has been on a skills based journey as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Why, you know, you went down that path? What kind of outcomes have you seen? What's next? Yes. We're probably just shy of twelve months of implementing it in the contact center. We had high turnover related to really bringing people in that weren't suited to contact center work and really, a lot of feedback around how the job wasn't what they expected it to be. So in some conversations with some of the leaders, we started to talk about assessments, and we went with Vrvo because it's real on job tasks that we have kind of control over. It's it's seemed like major improvements. So we had a forty percent reduction in turnover generally in the in the contact center, which was massive, but we've also had just higher candidate engagement through the process. More people are turning up to group interviews. The conversion rate is higher. The day one attendance is higher. The time to competency in the role is also higher. So it's been a really good journey for the contact centre. We'll look to obviously roll it out in the contact centres for Fiji and the Philippines and hopefully get the same outcomes there, But we'll also be expanding it across team leadership, some of the technical roles, and then going on that journey that Jess was just mentioning about really trying to take leaders on that journey with us, because there are lots of biases in the recruitment process. So if we can focus on skills and broaden the talent pool, then you know, a lot of the concerns that people have around skill strategies hopefully will shrink. Absolutely. And we've talked a lot about, you know, the need for recruiters to think like marketers, obviously, the shift around how we hire. But we've also seen the role of TA functions within organizations really is having to have a seat at the table to be a strategic driver of business success. Not just, but how does TA actually contribute to organisational outcomes? I know Caroline, this is an area that you're particularly passionate about. How are you seeing the role of TA evolve and how are you showcasing and measuring impact within your organisation? Yeah, definitely. I think what I've realised is the C suite just wants some rolling data. They want metrics. They want to see what's actually happening in the business. So, you know, in the olden days, it used to be just reduced agency spend or whatever. Now we're actually looking at the quality of the hire, the time to fill, first year turnover, retention rates. So we've just got to provide a lot of data to them so they can understand where we are as a business at that moment in time. I think providing the data also helps with business cases for when you do want to do, for example, a page of optimization or you need to look at outsourced reference checking, whatever it may be. So I think it really helps the talent team as well. And also because I think my team, we are quite goal orientated as a culture. So I think that helps us as well to understand what our key metrics are and what we need to deliver to as well. And have you had to fight for that seat at the table, Caroline? Or have you found that your c suite have been willing to bring TA under the hood? I think what I realised when I joined TAE eighteen months is they probably didn't know what the data was out there, what they could get and what was of interest to them. So I think just presenting them with what they should need to know about the talent in the organization helped them. So I think that firmly got us a seat at the table. Excellent. And we've been talking about common trends. And I think one of the things that I I really want to cover off for our audience to hear your thoughts as well is thinking ahead of what do you think would be the biggest change or the biggest shift for TA in twenty twenty six? What trends, tools do you think might pop up next year? And if there's any advice you have as well. So maybe Ben, let's start with you. What do you potentially see on the horizon? Think it's hard to pick just one. I think it's the year to test and fail. I think the noise in this space makes it seem like AI is just gonna solve all our problems and make things really easy. And I think fundamentally although I'm not really optimistic, I think fundamentally that's not true, at least right now. I think that my advice for TA leaders would be to slow down, ignore the noise, don't compare yourself to anyone on LinkedIn. Everyone has different stages, and I think focusing on the highlight reels of others is really gonna distort the reality for you and stop you focusing on what your team and business needs right now. I think you've got to talk to your teams about what it is that they enjoy in their roles, what they don't enjoy in their roles. Speak to your tech partners about some of the things that they might be rolling out. We had great alignment for the fact that PageUp released, you know, tools in the space that we wanted to move into, so that was that was great before we tried to look for it externally. And then look for themes. Are your tech providers like that going to be launching things that are your pain points? And then look to AI to to fill the gaps. Leverage what you already have access to to test and fail. Don't spend loads of money on things that you don't need to. And, yeah, let's see where it goes. Absolutely. Caroline, what about you? What do you think looking into the crystal ball, you think we could be tackling in twenty twenty six and any advice? I think certainly for Michael Hill and Bevels, we're really going to continue to look at the candidate experience, but also the hiring manager experience. At the end of the day, I see my team as internal recruiters. So we just agency recruiters, but we work internally. So we just want to make sure we still have solid working relationships with everyone. I think we do need to embrace AI. I think we need to look at what's going to work for us, not necessarily what the competitors are doing, and really look at the brands of Michael Hill and Bevels when it comes to AI as well to make sure we are attracting the right people. And really keep a strong and collaborative team. I think I've worked hard to get a solid team and we just need to we all complement each other. So similar to what Ben was saying, just work with their strengths and what they actually enjoy doing as well as opposed to just being your typical TA partner, tailor the role accordingly to make sure it does stay interesting. Absolutely. And what about you, Jess? Well, I think similar to both Carolyn and Ben, I think AI is definitely a priority of ours. But for the purpose of that candidate experience, what we utilize AI wise to gain time elsewhere so that we can focus on on improving things for our our leaders, for our candidates, for our team. And I guess a a part of that is focusing on those those small wins that you can do relatively quickly while focusing on that long term possibility. And then I guess the other thing that I I do anticipate for for twenty twenty six is that there may be some economic factors that that take place into how many people are applying, what jobs they're applying for, their their salary expectations. And like everyone, I don't know what's gonna happen. I I don't have a crystal ball, but I do anticipate if things shift a little bit economically, it could have a big impact on the the talent acquisition space. So it's just trying to touch base with that every so often to make sure that we're getting around those challenges while focusing on the the improvements on candidates experience as well. Absolutely. And one of the things I just heard coming through the responses from our panel there is the importance of focusing on your teams through these processes as well, whether it's culture, what they're enjoying their capability. And with all this change that's going on in TA, I am curious, and maybe Ben, I'll start with you, like, what have you done with your team to kind of bring them on the journey, build their capability through a big period of kind of big shifts in the TA industry? Just brute force shoving it down their throats really at this point. No. No. I think I've I'm just trying to get them to engage as much as possible and and kind of, you know, listen to what they're they're saying. I kind of have pushed them into to things, and then when there's hesitancy kinda gone, okay. Maybe they're just not quite ready. Maybe they're not comfortable. What is that? And how can we, you know, you know, mitigate that? I think we focus so much on candidate experience, hiring manager experience, that we can sometimes lose sight of the fact that we want to enjoy our jobs as well, and the experience for us is really, really important. So, yeah, just listening and just slowly but surely edging them in is kind of my main strategy right now. Absolutely. And Caroline, you mentioned t eighteen culture being something that's been really important to you. What have you done to build and foster that through, you know, a big twelve, eighteen month period at Michael Hill? I think we all just know we've got each other's backs. We've all got different strengths, different areas that we can develop. But I think as a team, we are a very strong experienced team. And we actually all like each other. And we all like to have a wine together. I'm gonna say that. So that helps the culture as well. We have lots of fun. Brilliant. Well, we've covered off all the key areas that we wanted to cover off with our panel today. We've looked back at twenty twenty twenty five, ahead to twenty twenty six. We've hit a lot of the common hot topics in the industry, tech and AI, candidate experience, branding, skills based hiring. I'll just give one last question out to our panel. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our audience? Any advice or any top tips that you'd like to leave as parting words of wisdom to our audience? Enjoy the Christmas break because twenty twenty six is gonna be massive, I think. I think I'd just say don't fear it. Just get into it. That's you know, test and fail is the that's gonna be my mantra through two twenty six. So Absolutely. What about you, Jess? I think my advice would be to just have some fun along the way. Have some touch earth moments. If something's getting a little bit overwhelming or you think it's, you know, too much of a reach at the moment, just take a take a breath and focus on what you have accomplished and what you're doing well on. I think sometimes we tend to focus on things that we can't do that. That's going to be a bit too difficult or we didn't get approval for that. But if we focus on the things that we do well and what we're able to achieve, it can can bring us some happiness that way. Absolutely. And one of the things that I think you've all talked about, which I really, like, really took away is don't don't worry about the FOMO. You know, if you're on LinkedIn and you're seeing all these things, like, don't compare yourself to that. Focus on what's right for your organization. Be really purposeful and intentional with your decisions and what's gonna create outcomes for your organization. I think that's really important too because there is so much information out there on some of these areas that not comparing yourself and thinking about what's right for you is one of the best takeaways that I think our audience can leave with as well. So I will say a big thank you to our panelists, Caroline, Ben, and Jess. It's been amazing hearing from the three of you about, what's been on the horizon for you, what's what twenty twenty six looks like, your thoughts on some of these key trends in the industry. I know I'll be very eagerly following the journeys over twenty twenty six to see how some of these things shake out for you. Thank you all to our attendees who are here, who have been watching today. I hope you got a lot out of it. If you do have any follow-up questions, please feel free to get in contact with Pager. And yes, hopefully for those who haven't seen have a great December and a last run home to Christmas, we are almost into the downhill stretch. And thank you all for joining today.