Follow-up Report Fusion Days 2017

How technical progress brings added opportunity, but maybe even more uncertainty… A follow-up report from this year’s milch & zucker event.

Fusion Days 2017, the exclusive customer event by milch & zucker and JobStairs, always offers plenty of moments for joint reflection, discussion, and looking forward together. This year’s event November 7th and 8th in Gießen didn’t disappoint: Roughly 120 managers and experts from the IT and HR fields came together in the stylish ambiance of the Heyligenstaedt hotel restaurant to exchange ideas and be inspired by exciting talks.

Generation Y meets Chatbots

After the JobStairs Community Meeting and the BeeSite Recruiting Edition user group meeting the first day, the second day consisted of multiple presentations on a variety of topics. One of these was on Generation Y: Dr. Steffi Burkhart gave a talk on the mindset, mentality, and worldview of Generation Y.

In her opinion, these are key issues to understand if companies want to continue attracting talented employees in digital fields in the future. To do so, they need to think beyond past approaches to talent management and design a new culture of exchange, collaboration, and creativity. According to Dr. Steffi Burkhart, millennials can be divided into three types: users, experts, and create-ups. Each of these demands a different recruiting strategy.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Jäger from the Hochschule RheinMain in Wiesbaden and spokesman for job board JobStairs informed attendees on the topic of chatbots, showing that robot recruiting may play a key role in the recruiting process as soon as 2020.

In some cases, chatbots are already being used in recruiting, although today they only offer rudimentary functions and do not function as a smart learning system. However, operators plan to continue developing them to create KI based bots. Essentially, chatbots are text or speech-based dialogue systems that allow users to communicate with the underlying system via input and output screens using natural language. Chatbots can contribute to communicative rationalisation in recruiting, and they fulfil the growing needs of the target audience for smart services throughout the recruiting process.

Finally, Dr. Jäger presented how digital voice control is used by JobStairs: a link with Echo API from Amazon allows candidates to search for jobs using Alexa – they can ask the system for positions and receive results read out to them or through a direct e-mail. Using JobStairs as a new Alexa skill is a new application, and will be consistently developed in the future.

From deep learning to data privacy

Dr. Damian Borth, Director of the Deep Learning Competence Centre/German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), provided an overview of deep learning and artificial intelligence.

Deep learning is focused on how the brain works and simulates a densely woven network of simple nerve cells. Changing network connections in a targeted manner allows artificial systems to learn from experience. That makes deep learning the driving engine behind modern KI and – in Dr. Borth’s opinion – a truly forward-thinking market. The speaker presented impressive examples of applications in video analysis or in automatic facial, street, and object recognition.

Bon Idziak, Chief Compliance Officer of Accurate Background Inc., presented a highly contentious topic in his speech on „background checks“.

Are background checks allowed on applicants? What are typical checks like references, education, and less typical checks like address and credit standing? Global companies also need to keep the EU-US Privacy Shield (also known as: EU-US data privacy shield) and the DSGVO (German Basic Data Privacy Ordinance) in mind. Bon Idizak is a leading expert on the topic of minimising risk in employee hiring. He advocates for smart background screening programmes that guarantee compliance, ensuring applicant or employee rights in every aspect of the process. He works closely with American associations to do so.

Team Recruiting, Influencer and Digital Badge

Ingolf Teetz, milch & zucker CEO, and Ute Neher, Head of HR Marketing Germany for Telekom, explained an entirely new recruiting approach for IT experts.

The joint pilot project „Team-Recruiting“ is based on a trend that sees IT professionals placing less value on the specific company they work for. Instead, they want to know what they’re working on and who they’re working with. This realisation led to the development of a team recruiting microsite for Telekom where a variety of teams can present themselves. Potential applicants can check whether the company is looking for their skills. Then they can compare the cultural fit of the company and select an exciting project. This allows them to access an environment where they want to work with just a few clicks. A strict focus on the search behaviour and needs of relevant target audiences offers true added value for the job search for IT professionals – as both presenters agreed.

The jury at this year’s HR Excellence Awards took a similar viewpoint: They named the innovative project the winner in the category „Group career websites“. From the standpoint of the two originating companies, the award indicates they’re on the right path with their team recruiting approach. Each year, the HR Excellence Awards honour innovative and forward-thinking projects in HR management that add fresh perspectives to HR work through creative thinking.

From a technical standpoint, implementing the team recruiting site is another recruiting channel integrated into the existing Telekom career website. All of the jobs shown already exist; they are simply being presented for target audience specific display in a new and fully automated process. Telekom team recruiting is based on the „BeeSite Global JobBoard“ software solution by milch & zucker. Telekom team recruiting site at https://telekom.jobs/findedeinteam ansehen.

Hauke Gerdes, known through web TV channel Rocket Beans and other projects, created excitement around the topic of Influencers.

The term, which was first used in 2007, describes individuals who are highly respected online due to their strong social media presence. This is currently a trending topic that offers companies the opportunity to present themselves to young and talented employees and generate awareness. Hauke Gerdes gave participants insight into the influencer scene, presented a variety of social media platforms, and gave them tips on the four big questions key to any influencer marketing campaign: What are my goals? What is the environment like? Who is my influencer? How do I want to get active?

Then Serge Ravet, Innovation Director at ADPIOS, explained the concept of Digital Badges.

In his opinion, badges can play a key role in visualising social capital, since they document and record individuals’ skills in a way never before possible. These may include professional, social, or emotional skills. That makes badges an ideal kind of future currency for social capital. Serge Ravet presented a variety of implementation examples for badges during his talk, underscoring the fact that badges are primarily based on one factor: trust. All participants in Fusion Days received a Digital Badge.

We hope everyone who attended got some interesting insights into topics that aren’t (yet) on companies’ everyday agendas despite their importance. The Hotel Heyligenstaedt was a wonderful location offering excellent catering, and made a key contribution to the success of the event. So did our many diligent helpers who personally and professionally organised everything for the event in advance.

The Fusion-Days Team would like to thank everyone, and is already looking forward to seeing you again next year!